Cowboys, A Pair of Kings
by Penn O'Hara
Summary: After extracting themselves from Nicole's clutches in A Shift of Axis, the four detectives team up again. Finally finished. Goren'Eames, Logan'Barek.
1. Chapter 1

**"Cowboys, A Pair of Kings"**

_**Copyright 2006 Penn O'Hara**_

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply.**_

_**Timeline: Just before end of Season Five, LOCI. In fanfic-land, immediately after "Extracurricular Pursuits" and before "Wheelin Car".**_

**oOo**

_**Previously on "Extracurricular Pursuits"…**_

_**Logan and Barek stood in front of Deakins like two children before a stern father. He eyed each one in turn, his eyes traveling Barek's body with a quick impersonal thoroughness. Carolyn's neck quivered with painful tension. She didn't dare look, but she bet she had her blouse buttoned crookedly. **_

_**"My office," Deakins said. "Tomorrow morning. Early." His cool gaze giving nothing away, he spun on his heel and headed back to his car.**_

_**Carolyn was frozen to the spot, mentally rewinding the scene, wondering how much he could have seen. In the end, what he saw and what was painfully obvious, didn't really make much difference. **_

_**They were busted.**_

**oOo**

**Chapter One**

**"I'm going to look around and maybe transfer out."**

_**"What!?" **_** The two legs of Logan's chair on which he had been balancing, thumped to the floor and the pen he'd been chewing dropped to his desk. **

**"I can't sit here opposite you and not jump you," Barek stated as if she was discussing the weather.**

**Logan's brows shot up, then he smiled, unable to prevent a feeling of smugness at her admission. "Hey, hang in there, and we'll soon be like any couple and you'll be sayin' you got a headache–"**

**"I'm serious, Mike."**

**"That's what I'm afraid of." Humor gone, he frowned at the idea of her making career choices that affected him as much as herself. She'd blind-sided him and he didn't have to like it.**

**"Besides, Deakins isn't going to let us continue to work together. I just know it. Not after last night."**

**The mention of Deakins reminded Logan that they'd been at work for nearly forty five minutes and their Captain had yet to show.**

**"Where is he, anyway?" he asked. "He said, be here early. We were early. He's late."**

**"He's probably getting legal advice about partnered detectives making out in the front seats of cars." Barek chewed her lip, her gaze fixed on him. "Anyway, I'm looking ahead. If our relationship sours, there can be a quick, clean exit."**

**"You lookin' for it to sour?" Something clawed at his gut. With her analyzing their relationship and forming conclusions, she was throwing his equilibrium. "We've only begun–" **

**"No. I said, if. You make all my nerves hum, Mike. But you suit me in other ways too." She cocked her head to the side. "We're odd-matched, but we match. I think I'm in it for the long haul and I'm more interested in working on that, then I am on focusing on our working partnership. That's going to affect my performance on the job, right?"**

**She **_**was**_** serious and Logan needed to think about where his head was at. He swallowed hard. "You talkin' about commitment?" **

**She smiled for the first time since dropping her bombshell. "You think it's not going to happen to you eventually?"**

**He gulped this time. "When did you come up with these earth-shattering revelations? We were too busy last night–"**

**She leaned forward, her elbows on her desk and grinned wider. "Hey, don't get your boxers in a twist. I'm not pushing you for anything. Just be aware that you're targeted and I'm pretty persistent. I usually get what I want." She straightened, pushed back her chair and joined him at his desk. Putting a hand on his shoulder, she squeezed it, then leaned down…**

**"Brass alert!" Logan warned, looking up in time to see Deakins stride through the main door of the squad room.**

**Carolyn jumped back and Logan stood also, figuring Deakins would want them to follow him into his office.**

**"This time," Barek said quietly at his shoulder, "**_**I**_** do the talking."**

**That's what Logan was afraid of. He was aware of Goren and Eames watching them, heads lifted from the work at their desks. Logan idly wondered if the great Goren knew what was in the wind.**

**Their Captain walked straight past them but crooked a finger as he went. Logan heaved a sigh and nodded Barek forward, letting her precede. Deakins' back was rigid, his steps swift and Barek had to hurry to keep up with him, while Logan merely lengthened his stride. He had no idea what was ahead, but prepared himself for it to be rocky.**

**Inside Deakins' office, Barek took a chair, but Logan chose to stand, hands in pockets, waiting for the first axe to fall.**

**"How long?" Deakins asked, rounding his desk and placing his palms on its cluttered surface. He hadn't bothered taking a seat but leaned on his hands, his gaze sweeping them both.**

**Humoring her order to let her do the talking, Logan looked at Carolyn.**

**"A week or so, sir," she said, "but–"**

**"Is it serious?" **

**Logan tried to gauge Deakins' mood. Coupled with the confrontational stance behind his desk, his voice was short and direct. Things weren't shaping up well.**

**Logan looked at Barek again.**

**"I don't think that's–"**

**"Barek!" Deakins barked her name and Logan winced for Carolyn's sake.**

**"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "I'll request a transfer–"**

**"Then it **_**is**_** serious." **

**Logan's back stiffened as Deakins pushed himself off his desk, and folded his arms. What wasn't he seeing? Was it serious? Did he **_**want**_** it to be serious?**

**"We've been discreet–" Barek offered.**

**"**_**Discreet!**_**? I didn't see 'discreet' last night! I've seen hormonally-charged teenagers with more restraint than you two." Deakins rounded on Logan. "You! You I understand, thinking with your glands first and your head last." **

**Logan's chin came up, his jaw tightening on a retort which would have got him slapped in a cell for insubordination. **

**"But Barek?" Deakins asked, his voice rising. "I don't know what your excuse is."**

**Carolyn opened her mouth to say something, but Deakins held up a hand. "Save it." His eyes narrowed on her and Logan watched his Captain try to contain his temper. He'd never seen Deakins lose it and he didn't want to witness it now.**

**"This happen to you before?" Deakins asked Barek.**

**"**_**No, sir!**_**"**

**"Logan?!"**

**Logan jumped. "Uh, hardly, er, I mean, no… sir." **

**Mike leaned back against the wall behind him, crossing an ankle over the other, giving the impression he was cool and unconcerned when inside his gut was churning. He may have deserved some dressing-down, but he'd grown out of short pants decades ago and he didn't like the way Deakins was targeting Carolyn.**

**Deakins picked up his phone and punched in a number, his glance flicking between the two of them as he waited for the connection. "Drop what you're doing and join us in my office," he spat into the phone. "Bring Goren with you." He hung up and sat down at his desk, fingers linked on its surface. "You're going to have to relinquish all your current files and have Goren and Eames check any recently closed ones. If there is a hint of any shoddy work–"**

**"Hey, Captain, you're over-reacting here," Logan said, pushing himself off the wall. **

**"Am I? Have you any idea what the defense attorneys will do if they get the slightest odor coming off this?" Deakins asked. "They'll tear through all of your arrests and cry 'Appeal' like marauding crows! Every judgment you've been instrumental in together will be overturned and hung out to dry."**

**A knock at the door had Deakins waving in Eames and Goren. They hovered, looking more worried than expectant.**

**"You two are taking on an extra workload," Deakins ordered. "Barek and Logan are handing over their closed cases to you. I want you to go through their procedural reports with a fine toothed comb and look for any irregularities or corner-cutting. Eames, you'll work with Barek on half of them and Goren and Logan are teaming up on the rest."**

**Despite his rising ire, Logan had to snort at that statement, especially when it was followed by an astounded look on Goren's face.**

**"Captain?" Bobby asked.**

**"You got a problem with that, Detective?"**

**"No, I… I've got a… confusion with that."**

**So, the great Goren was clueless on this one. Logan was surprised and a little smug at the realization.**

**"I'll let Logan fill you in." Deakins picked up his phone again, and hit the button for an outside line. He jerked his chin toward the door and turned away.**

**His back bristling at the abrupt dismissal, Logan touched Carolyn's wrist as they followed Goren and Eames out of Deakins' office. "I wasn't much use to you in there," he apologized. He was still reeling from the shock of her request for a transfer. He didn't want to lose her and he was still ambivalent about his own feelings. He wasn't good at changing horses, despite having done it so many times already.**

**Carolyn shook her head. "There was nothing you could do or say. I knew what was coming. He's right about the defense attorney crack, but double-checking our work wasn't warranted."**

**"Goren and Eames aren't going to be happy."**

**"I'm going to be less happy if I don't hear what that was all about," Alex said, hanging back and tipping her chin at Logan.**

**"Uh, how about coffee for four in the briefing room," he suggested, his grin at her forced.**

**oOo**

**Goren heard Logan and Barek out and wondered why he wasn't second-guessing himself. He and Alex were in no more moral a position and yet he was comfortable with it and wasn't as prepared to remedy the situation as Barek seemed to be. Meanwhile, Deakins was condoning Barek's transferal out of the Precinct. If their Captain only knew, he had double the trouble and Goren couldn't advise the other detectives now without labeling himself a hypocrite.**

**"I mean, what right does the brass have to tell us who we spend our down-time with and how?" Logan asked, demolishing his paper cup into a ball and tossing it into the wastepaper bin.**

**"Mike, you know that's not the issue here," Barek said. "Deakins is right. If there is any sign of impropriety, the lawyers will have a field day with it."**

**"How did he find out?" Goren asked, curious.**

**Logan and Barek exchanged looks but neither ventured the answer.**

**Alex' eyes narrowed. "My partner asked you a question. If we're going to wear the backlash of this, we deserve an answer."**

**Barek bit her lip. "He…he followed us home," she said quietly.**

**"You're living together already?" Alex' voice rose.**

**"No!" Logan's face twisted, his eyes bugging out of his head. "He…saw us… together." His head swung away to look out at the activity in the bullpen. "In the car," he added, mumbling.**

**"Now's the time for someone to say you got what you deserve."**

**Goren hid a smile, amused more by the look of horror on Alex' face than Logan's admission they had been making out in the car. **

**The silence in the room stretched, finally broken by Alex' quiet delivery. "Deakins is leaving too, you know." **

**The effect was shattering. Barek gasped and spilt her coffee while Logan thumped his fists on the conference table.**

**"The hell he is!" Logan thundered.**

**Goren nodded. "That…officer who was first on the scene after you shooting the undercover cop?" Logan made a strangled noise. "Deakins has been accused of fast-tracking him… as payment for painting you favorably in his report of that night. Rather than humor them, Deakins has resigned."**

**"He's gonna break us up and he's not even gonna be around to pick up the pieces?" Logan asked incredulously.**

**"Mike, it doesn't matter," Barek said. "I want a transfer–"**

**"Well, I the hell don't!" Logan erupted from his chair and slammed out of the room.**

**Alex' mouth thinned. "How do you…?"**

**"Put up with him?" Barek smiled. "The pros far outweigh the cons, believe me." She turned to Bobby. "Is transferring the right thing to do?"**

**Again, Goren could say little without diminishing his own conduct. "I think… C…Carolyn, you've already thought this through and made your choice. Every… well-informed decision has the potential to be the right one until proven wrong."**

**"I guess so. Mike doesn't understand."**

**Alex nodded sagely. "He wouldn't." She smiled uncertainly, and Bobby wondered if she too were debating their keeping their own secret.**

**"I'm sorry to put you into this awkward position, Alex," Barek said. "You, too, Bobby. You both don't need the extra work."**

**"From what I understand, it's you and me doing it," Alex said. "And the guys get to do some male-bonding."**

**"I'm sorry about that too." Barek lifted her eyes to Goren and he tried to give her a reassuring smile.**

**"Don't sweat it," Alex said. "There's no room for egos here. Speaking of which, Bobby, you'd best track Logan down and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, like punching out the Captain."**

**Goren hesitated on the balls of his feet, then nodded. "Uh…okay." **

**He left the room, interpreting Alex' dismissal of him as her wanting to get more information on Logan and Barek's relationship from Carolyn. He hoped she didn't get any ideas herself about transferring.**

**Goren found Logan at his desk, looking mulish and tossing pencils into a pencil holder. When the last pencil didn't quite make it, but was balanced precariously across the top of the holder, he collected them all and started tossing them in again, one by one.**

**"Who are you mad at?" Goren asked, lowering himself into Barek's chair. "Deakins, Barek or yourself?"**

**"She doesn't have to transfer," Logan gritted, indirectly answering Bobby's question. "She made the decision without consulting me. She's makin' changes that affect me without warning me first."**

**"She's…changing your life and that scares you."**

**"You're damned right it scares me." Logan threw the remaining pencils onto the desk so that they scattered haphazardly across its surface.**

**"Yet, you changed her life by…" He swept out a hand. "…becoming her lover."**

**Logan snorted. "She didn't exactly give me much choice."**

**"You didn't say, 'no thanks'."**

**"'No' was the furtherest thing from my mind." Logan picked up one of the scattered pencils and tossed it hard toward the holder. It flew wide, landing and sliding off the desk to roll across the floor. **

**Goren watched its progress, thinking hard about his own situation. "She's doing what she thinks is best for her," he said. "She has that right. That may…impinge on you, but it doesn't force you to do anything against your will. You can't stop life affecting you, Logan. From picking you up and tossing you in another direction."**

**A faint noise alerted Goren to another's presence and he looked up to see a tall woman with shoulder-length red hair standing three feet away.**

**"Detective Robert Goren?" she asked, her voice tinged with a slight accent.**

**Goren stiffened. It was unmistakably Australian, like Nicole's, but without the latter's cultivated British overtones.**

**"Yes?" he said, standing slowly, mentally preparing himself. "You know me?"**

**"The other detectives pointed you out." She came closer and held out a hand and he hesitated briefly before accepting her warm grasp. **

**"I'm Bree Archer," she said. "I'm an ex-pat Aussie working at the One-Nine. I intercepted a feeler you sent out to the Precincts enquiring about Nicole Wallace."**

**Goren came on full alert. "Yes?"**

**"I'm her dead daughter's aunt."**

**oOo**


	2. Chapter 2

**"Cowboys, A Pair of Kings"**

_**Copyright 2006 Penn O'Hara**_

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply.**_

**_And Readers! Please, PLEASE, send me reviews or PMs telling me what you want. Bammi and Kerst! You two are great! So instrumental in prodding my thoughts and germinating the little idea. I get in a tunnel and if you don't redirect me, I forget to pounce on the little branch lines._**

**_El Chacal wanted to see my take on Deakins' reaction to Logan and Barek's relationship being 'outed'. I wasn't even going to 'out' them, but then it segued beautifully into a reason for Barek's leaving. Thank you, El Chacal, for that little idea._**

**_Podie1 has ideas about my 'Wheelin Car' story, which I've taken on board._**

**_Boohoo…I see we think alike. That's how I was reading the way these four detectives might handle their changed circumstances. Glad I hit the spot for someone else._**

**_And finally, I wasn't going to do another 'Nicole' story, but I got prodded enough times. See how malleable I am? Tell me what you want. You may even get it. Or rather, my take on what you want. LOL!_**

**_oOo_**

**Chapter Two **

**Seeing movement at the briefing room door, Carolyn looked up and was surprised by the return of Mike and Bobby, ushering in a woman she didn't recognize. **

**Carolyn had spent the last fifteen minutes parrying Alex' probing questions about her relationship with Mike and desperately needed respite. She smiled warmly at Mike as he joined her at the briefing table, but he didn't reciprocate, his face closed, his gaze skittering away from her. Frowning, she looked expectantly at the newcomer hovering near Bobby.**

**"Ms Archer, this is Detective Eames and Barek. Brie Archer is an expatriate from Australia," he explained, bobbing his head and shifting to his other foot, stepping back slightly. "Ms Archer has generously agreed to share a lead on Nicole Wallace."**

**Alex made a noise beside her and Carolyn put out a hand to her in support. Looking quickly at Mike, she saw his attention fixed on Archer, his mouth thinned. But what she took for nervousness on Bobby, she now realized was excitement. Rather than be apprehensive about Nicole's blip back on their radar, he was eager for it, champing at the bit.**

**"I asked her to share her information with all of us, each having our own stake in tracking Nicole down."**

**It was generous of Bobby to include Carolyn. Her interest was really only concerned with how Alicia's death impacted on Logan and as far as she could tell, Mike had accepted his ex-lover's tragic end by Nicole's hand. Carolyn had to assume then that Bobby included both of them because he wanted their help.**

**His next words confirmed it.**

**"I'm going to follow up this lead on my own time. With the load Deakins just handed us, I don't see any other way of doing it. I'm sure I can count on Eames to help and Logan has already offered his services." He looked expectantly at Carolyn.**

**"I'm in," she said quickly. It was the least she could do, considering she was the cause of the extra work.**

**"Good," Bobby said, his hands fluttering by his side. "When you hear what Ms Archer has to say, you'll realize you are also our best chance of success."**

**Carolyn tipped her head, intrigued, waiting for him to continue.**

**"I don't know that I'm of much help," Ms Archer said. Carolyn's ear pricked at the accent, certain it would have caught Bobby's interest immediately also. "But Detective Goren's email on the one-nine notice board declared any lead, no matter how small, would be welcomed."**

**She glanced at Eames, then her gaze rested on Carolyn. "Barek… Carolyn Barek?"**

**Carolyn nodded, an eyebrow raised, intrigued.**

**"I've heard my husband mention you." She smiled. "Good things. He works… well, that's not important right now."**

**"Thank you," Carolyn nodded. "What can you tell us about Nicole Wallace? Her whereabouts?" she asked hopefully.**

**"Unfortunately not." The woman smiled with genuine regret.**

**"Ms Archer's brother was the father of Nicole's daughter," Bobby said. "The one who died in Queensland." **

**Alex shifted restlessly. "Nicole is still in contact with your brother?" she asked, her voice tight.**

**"No, my brother is dead. A road accident," Archer said with quiet regret. "Nearly eight months ago. He died _in testate_… without a will. I'm his sole surviving relative. " She took a deep breath. "Nicole is contesting the will. I can give you the name of the firm she's using and I've agreed to help Detective Goren in any other way that I can. If he can get Nicole Wallace off my back," she said, her voice rising steadily with anger, "and out of my brother's affairs, I will be more than compensated."**

**Carolyn's eyes widened. "Another sister-in-law? Nicole's got them coming out of the woodwork all of a sudden." She couldn't prevent the sarcastic disbelief in her voice, feeling this fell a bit too pat on top of Alicia Mateus' involvement with Wallace.**

**"Nicole is contesting the will based on her being the mother of Ms Archer's brother's child, not his wife," Bobby explained, dipping his head at the Australian. "Isn't that right?" **

**She glanced at him and nodded.**

**"A child she killed," Logan mumbled.**

**"The estate is a large one?" Alex asked cautiously.**

**"Not substantial, no," Archer explained, "but a family business is at stake. Nicole has already done her best to destroy my family. I don't want her to complete the job."**

**"How can I help, Bobby?" Carolyn asked.**

**"Of the four of us, you're the only one that Nicole hasn't seen. With Ms Archer's help, and a little legal coaching, I'd like to pass you off as the lawyer for her brother's estate and arrange a meeting with Nicole's representative. That will be our foot in Nicole's door."**

**"As our resident linguist," Mike added, "we're relying on you to give a believable rendition of an Australian accent too." He gave a half-heartened grin, then held up his hands when Carolyn opened her mouth in dismay. "Joking!"**

**Alex stirred beside Carolyn. "I don't want to be rude here, Bobby, but can we be assured of Ms Archer's legitimacy…as the child's aunt and her desire to bring Nicole to justice?"**

**Bobby nodded. "Logan and I have already verified her claims and we're confident she can help us. Ms Archer has agreed to terminate her arrangement with the current law firm she's engaged, and instruct them to forward on all relevant documentation to a fictitious company Barek will be 'working' for."**

**"I can do one better," Carolyn said. "I've got a connection with a real firm here in New York. I can pull a few favors and use their letterhead and offices if necessary." She frowned, not sure it would be enough. "But Bobby, Nicole isn't going to just walk into my 'office'. If she's represented, she won't need to. She can stay in the background nether for as long as she likes."**

**Bobby nodded excitedly. "I understand that. I also know Nicole. If she finds the situation sliding away from her, she'll step up to the plate to recover it. That's what we strive for." He held out both hands toward the Australian. "Ms Archer has given us more to work with than _I've_ got at the moment. I'll take what I can get."**

**"And when she does surface again, Bobby?" Alex asked, her voice small and strained. "What then?"**

**Bobby frowned, then turned to Brie Archer, a hand showing her the door. "If you wouldn't mind waiting at my desk, I'll get someone to escort you out of the Precinct."**

**"No, I'm fine," Ms Archer said hurriedly. "I know my way around a New York squad room. You have my number, Mr Goren. I'll wait for your call." She nodded to the rest of the room and walked out gracefully, closing the door behind her.**

**Bobby turned back to face Alex' pinched expression. **

**"We take Nicole down this time, Alex. I promise you."**

**oOo**

**"Hey, wait up, Carolyn," Logan called, grabbing his partner by the elbow as they filed out of the briefing room behind Goren and Eames. "We gotta talk."**

**"Sure, Mike." Her brows knitted. "But here? Now?"**

**"Yeah, here and now." He guided her back into the room and closed the door, more to keep her from escaping than ensuring their conversation remained private.**

**"Alex will be waiting for me. I have to help her with our files–"**

**"She can wait." He sat down at the table, drumming his fingers on its surface as he waited for her to join him, not quite knowing where or how to start. Instead, Barek stood beside him, shaking her head.**

**"What?" He looked up at her, confused.**

**"Your momma never taught you no manners?" she asked broadly, smiling.**

**"Huh?"**

**"A gentleman sits after… Never mind." Carolyn sat and leaned sideways against the desk, her smile widening. "That will come later. I can teach–"**

**Logan's neck tightened, his teeth on edge. "There! See! There ya go. More plans. Don't I get any say in this?" He swallowed the panic in his voice and took a breath, noting Carolyn's eyes flicker and widen, then cloud over. **

**"You're right, Mike," she said with genuine regret. "I'm sorry. I'm new at this intimacy game too, you know. You don't think my career has limited me to not much better than one night stands also?" Her face softened. "I'm not exactly Miss Congeniality and it's hard for me to hang onto a guy long enough to get to know him." She held a hand out to him. "I was able to get to know you and feel comfortable with you on the job and the physical side…well, I fought that until I could fight it no longer."**

**Logan's jaw dropped at the admission, rendered speechless. He hoped she hadn't planned it that way. "I…well…"**

**"You're apprehensive. I can see that. I've knocked you for a loop with my decision to transfer out." She wrapped her hands around his forearm. "I feel so good about us and feel so right with it, I just steam-rollered you." One hand slid down to cover his where it lay on the table between them. "I'll try to watch that. The transfer is _fait accompli_, Mike. Deakins will see to that. But the rest, I'll go slow, I promise."**

**"Rest?" Logan gulped.**

**Carolyn leaned forward and kissed him, lingering warmly. "Don't worry so. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?"**

**"I…" Logan could barely get a word out.**

**"Lunch later?"**

**"Uh, y…yeah. O…kay." He'd wanted to tackle her about her making decisions without him. Steam-rollering, she'd called it, and that's exactly how it felt and he was sure she was still doing it.**

**"We can walk through the park," Carolyn said brightly. "I know this great little nook where no one ever goes and its secluded…" She moved closer, her lips at his ear. "…and intimate…" Her voice dropped to a husky purr. "…and the bench is wide…and long…" **

**Her tongue flicked against his ear and Logan's eyes crossed at the curl of lust that ran up his body. **

**oOo**

**Alex was aware Logan and Barek didn't follow them out and was thankful. She wanted to tackle Bobby alone and, after collecting Logan and Barek's call-out sheet, she followed Bobby to the records room where they would have to pull out the other detectives' case files. She waited until the other occupant left before stopping Bobby's progress up the aisle between the rows of filed boxes.**

**"Have you any idea how many deaths I died when Deakins called us into his office?" she whispered urgently.**

**"I told you not to worry," Bobby said, giving her a small smile. "Deakins can't know about…us."**

**She bit her lip. "I know what you told me, but Deakins looked…furious."**

**"And he was. But not at us." His smile broadened. **

**"If Logan and Barek are gonna make asses of themselves in a car," Alex tossed her head, "they deserve it. But this…Deakins' reaction…has got me worried."**

**Bobby turned fully to face her and took her hands gently in his. It made Alex feel a little better, but her stomach was still in knots.**

**"Alex, I know you're concerned." His face had such a look of earnestness, Alex was touched, a warm glow enveloping her. "I'll do my best to keep our secret…as _you_ will." **

**He frowned, his mouth tightening on a thought. "I don't want you getting ideas about transfers, okay? I need you to help me concentrate on Nicole. We have this lead. We have…" Alex jumped as he thumped his hand against the rack of boxes. "…all this workload dumped on us. But I want Nicole. You know how badly I want Nicole?"**

**Alex blinked at the intense look on his face. "Real bad?"**

**"So bad I can taste it. With her loose in the world…anywhere in the world…your life is in danger. I don't fear for myself. I'm terrified for you."**

**"Bobby, I appreciate your concern–"**

**He shook his head from side to side. "She wanted you dead once." Alex' eyes widened at the almost snarl in his voice. **

**"And she's not finished."**

**oOo**

**Goren knew he'd alarmed her, and he was immediately contrite. He backed off, patting her hand, checked the call-sheet she'd given him and moved on. He gave her time to recover then waited for her to help him retrieve the files they needed. As they worked, he encouraged her to grouse about the extra work they'd been given, good-humoredly agreeing with her that Logan was an ass who couldn't keep it in his pants.**

**Loaded up with files, they made their way back to the briefing room and surprised Logan and Barek practically sitting in each other's laps, Logan's hands under Barek's shirt and Barek's face nuzzling his neck. The pair sprung apart at the opening of the door, their faces preoccupied and guilty.**

**"You gonna do that _here_?!" Alex cried.**

**Hearing the disgust in Alex' voice, Goren gently butted her shoulder with his file-laden arm, encouraging her to lay off them. He was conscious of the pressure Logan's actions would place on all of them but he was also mindful it could very easily have been Eames and he in the same situation. Logan and Barek were the unlucky ones that showed up on Deakins' radar.**

**Logan jumped up, pulling his coat around him, then offered to take the boxes out of Eames' arms. She swung away from him, refusing his help, balancing the files on the desk herself.**

**Goren would have to delicately take his partner to task at her treatment of Logan during the first available opportunity. The best time to convince her that the other detectives weren't solely to blame would be when he had Alex helplessly out of control in his own arms. He smiled at the thought and anticipation tightened his body. No, he couldn't blame Logan at all.**

**Dumping the files he carried on the end of the large table, he smiled at Barek, injecting sympathy and understanding into his face. ****"Let's get started, shall we?"**

**Barek smiled back, and Goren was sure he saw gratitude reflected in her eyes.**

**"The quicker we finish here, the quicker we get to Nicole?" she asked and he knew she understood.**

**Feeling that Logan could do no better than have this woman in his life, he vowed to do all he could to get the other man to a place where he realized it for himself.**

**oOo**

_**TBC…**_


	3. Chapter 3

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings" **

_**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**_

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply.**_

**A/N: I had to go back and reread Chapters One and Two before I could edit this, it has been so long since I've tackled it. It might be a plan for continuing readers to do the same. Blame "Logan Cocktails" for the absence.**

**oOo**

**Previously on Cowboys, Pair of Kings **

_**Loaded with files, Goren and Eames made their way from the records room back to the briefing room and surprised Logan and Barek practically sitting in each other's laps, Logan's hands under Barek's shirt and Barek's face nuzzling his neck. The pair sprung apart at the opening of the door, their faces preoccupied and guilty.**_

_**"You gonna do that here?!" Alex cried.**_

_**Goren heard the disgust in Alex' voice and gently butted her shoulder with his file-laden arm, encouraging her to lay off them. He was conscious of the pressure Logan's actions would place on all of them but he was also mindful it could very easily have been Eames and he in the same situation. Logan and Barek were the unlucky ones that got caught.**_

_**Dumping the files he carried on the end of the large table, Goren smiled at Barek, injecting sympathy and understanding into his face.**_

_**"Let's…let's get started, shall we?"**_

_**Barek smiled back, and Goren was sure he saw gratitude in her face.**_

_**"The quicker we finish here, the quicker we get to Nicole?" she asked and Goren knew she understood. **_

_**Feeling that Logan could do no better than have this woman in his life, Goren vowed to do all he could to get the other man to a place where he realized it for himself.**_

**oOo**

**Chapter Three**

**Goren leaned back against his chair and stretched, his arms high above his head and feet out the side, tempted to kick the back of Logan's chair to startle him out of his black mood. The man had worked steadily with him all morning in the briefing room but his sullen attitude was wearing thin. Goren glanced over at Eames and Barek and their look of concentration on the papers in front of them looked identical. They obviously weren't having a problem working as a team. Logan had issues and it was time Goren dispelled them for him.**

**He pushed off his chair and thumped Logan on the shoulder. "On your feet. I'm buying lunch."**

**Logan looked up, surprised. "Carolyn was going to–"**

**Not wanting the girls involved when he hauled Logan's ass over the coals, Goren shook his head. "The girls are busy. I need a break. You coming or not?"**

**Logan looked over at Carolyn, who raised her head and waved him off. **

**"Yeah, sure," he said, "why not?"**

**Hands in his pockets, Goren waited for Logan to join him, then stood back so the other man could precede him out the door. "You gonna look to her cue for everything?" he asked, injecting a touch of ridicule in the way he said it. He wanted a focused Logan working with him, but he wanted a tough Logan, not a cowed one.**

**"We made plans," Logan mumbled.**

**Goren nodded. "Plans you weren't…too happy about. Judging by your attitude. All morning."**

**"I'm still coming to terms with everything."**

**Nodding harder, Goren agreed. Logan in a stalemate would slow down the whole process. Bobby vowed to do something about it. **

**"That's what I thought," he said. "Let's go."**

**oOo**

**With the local diner's Special Burgers under their belts, Goren figured Logan would be more receptive to talking. He folded his arms across his chest and eyed him from across the table.**

**"Get over it," he ordered.**

**"Huh?" Logan swigged on his coffee, draining it, then looked around for the waitress.**

**"Your problem. Get over it."**

**"You know nothing about it."**

**"I know enough to see that you're…you're ambivalent. You want this relationship with Barek. You don't want anything to change. Not gonna happen."**

**"I know that!" **

**"Then…"**

**"Hey, I don't see _you_ in a relationship. I don't see you settled down. What right–?"**

**Goren was sick of this. Logan was too close-minded to realize that his concerns were minor compared to the real threat to Eames' safety and Goren's peace of mind with Nicole Wallace still at large.**

**Leaning over the table, he swooped into Logan's face. "There's a bigger picture here, Logan. The risk to your independence…" He flipped his hand in the air to illustrate its inconsequence. "I…I believe Eames' life is at stake. Nicole–"**

**"Exactly! It can't be about me," Logan snarled, "'cos it has to be about you!"**

**Goren's hand went to Logan's throat, then he froze, his jaw slack and eyes staring. **

**_This wasn't going to work. _Normally, he wouldn't lose control so easily, but he had little patience for Logan's tunnel vision.**

**He released him but his hand stayed suspended in the air. **

**_You have to make it work! _He had to keep Logan on side and on track with their dilemma with Nicole.**

**"I'm…." He tucked in his neck, shaking his head and held up his hands between them. "I've got a good sense of Barek. A positive one." Shifting on the seat, he appealed to Logan. "I've seen you two together. She'll be good for you."**

**He looked out the window at the passing traffic, wondering if he were wasting his time. Nicole was _his_ problem, not Logan's. That's why he had to do something about it. Rolling his shoulders, he turned back to the other man. "There's no sense in dragging your feet. There's no hidden dangers. I'm not even sure _you _are going to be the loser."**

**"Thanks. I'm the liability here, is that it?" Logan closed the distance between them. "You think you know what's wrong with me. You're not even close! The mighty Major Case profiler is clueless." **

**Goren balked at the fury in the man's eyes, but didn't back down. They stared at each other, nose to nose. "Spell it out for me then," Goren said.**

**Logan sat back at last, and played with his empty coffee mug, rocking it on the surface of the table. "Carolyn threw me for a loop this morning, yeah, but I'm coming to terms with it. But have you stopped to think how I feel about you using my partner as bait for your Nicole vendetta? The woman's a psycho and you're pairin' _my _woman with her."**

**Goren blinked. Logan was right. He _was_ clueless. All the time Goren had believed Logan was worried about his own neck, he had been stressing over Barek's. His estimation and respect of the man went up. **

**"Barek's no fool," he said. "With her background, she's had more rigorous training than both of us put together. She's willing–"**

**"Eames is no fool _and_ a good cop. You gonna use _her_ for bait?"**

**Goren looked away. "Eames already is," he said quietly. "Nicole will use her to get to me. You agreed–"**

**"Up to a point. I agreed we could use the Archer woman's connection to flush Wallace out, but I didn't know you planned on sending Carolyn into the nest of vipers. If she goes in, I go in with her."**

**Goren shook his head adamantly. "Too risky. Too much chance that Nicole saw you at the Mateus' estate. When you stormed into the basement. Or at the boathouse."**

**"Barek was right behind me when I hit that basement. Wallace could have–"**

**"No, Nicole was too quick. I'll stake my life on she didn't make Barek."**

**Logan thumped his hand on the table. "Wrong, Goren! You're staking _Carolyn's_ life on it."**

**Goren expelled his breath in a frustrated groan. He surged to his feet, swinging his head. "I'm done here." Barreling his way to the entrance of the diner, Goren almost knocked over Eames leading Barek toward the table he vacated.**

**"Whoa, Bobby," Eames scolded. "Slow down. I was hoping you'd buy us lunch but it looks like you're trying to skip out on paying for your own."**

**"I…I can't." He tried to dodge her, unwilling to explain himself, but she put herself squarely in his way. "I have to…there's things to do. Nicole…" Goren looked up in time to see Eames jerk her head from Barek to Logan slumped over the table at the window.**

**"Carolyn, we'll catch up later," Alex said. C'mon, Bobby." Grabbing his arm, Eames guided him out of the diner. **

**"Where–?"**

**"Back to the Precinct. I'll get lunch on the way, and you'll do what you do best. Immerse yourself in your work, calm down and then we'll let you loose on Logan again."**

**It won't work, he thought. Logan was a bull-dog, planting his feet and refusing to budge. Goren couldn't work with a man like that.**

**oOo**

**When Logan became aware someone was standing beside his table, he assumed Bobby had changed his mind about letting him join Carolyn in the sting against Nicole and returned. He didn't bother to look up, choosing to ignore the man with the disdain he deserved.**

**He continued to rip his paper napkin to shreds as the seconds stretched and Logan's collar prickled until he could stand it no longer. "You ready to be reasonable about this?" he asked, tossing the pieces to the center of the table.**

**"Sure," Barek said as she slipped onto the seat beside him, "but I thought _you_ were the one with a bug up your butt." **

**She planted a swift kiss beside his lips opened in surprise and he felt an immediate softening of the knot in his stomach. It was strange the way she siphoned the anger from him with a simple gesture. **

**"I detected a distinct pout back in the briefing room," she said, "and now I'm looking at a thundercloud. What gives?"**

**The rush of pleasure to have her there lifted some of that cloud, but then Logan settled back into his concern that Carolyn had agreed to help Bobby by putting herself on the front line.**

**"Goren," he said simply and held up his coffee cup to the passing waitress.**

**Barek waited until the waitress scooped a clean mug from a nearby table and filled it as well as his. She gave her lunch order of a green salad before settling an elbow and forearm on the table and spearing him with her best interrogation look. Her other hand caressed the back of his neck, dispelling the notion that he was under the microscope and released more of his tension.**

**"I thought you had built up an immunity to his 'ways'?" she asked. "What's he done out of the ordinary?"**

**Logan took a swig of the bitter coffee, then decided he didn't want it. He slapped it back onto the table. "Knee-jerk reaction. You know how he is," he said, trying to fob her off. **

**"I know how _you_ are, and there's something other than Goren bugging you. That leaves only…us."**

**His brows lifting in surprise, Logan changed gear, seizing on her misreading of him. His earlier concerns about her railroading him had paled in comparison to his fears for her safety around Nicole, but it was a good excuse to grab and run with. Better than letting her know he lacked confidence in her handling herself around psychos like Wallace. He decided to play it for all it was worth.**

**"How would _you_ have reacted if I'd blabbed to anyone that would listen that I wanted out of this partnership?"**

**Barek sat back, a knowing satisfaction chasing relief over her face. "Ah, the male ego has been dented. Mike…" She swept out a hand in the general direction of OnePP. "…they know now we're sleeping together. My motive will be obvious. They aren't going to assume you're a lousy partner."**

**_Home and hosed_, Logan thought. This was too easy. He decided to extend the path away from dangerous ground.**

**Relaxing into his seat, he watched the pedestrians move past the diner window, a teeming tide, compact and consistent but with such diverse purposes. **

**"And what's next?" he asked. "_You've_ decided to split up our working relationship. With our jobs, we'll never see each other." He tried for mournful, eyes down and lip uncertain. "Next you'll be telling me you've decided you're movin' in with me." **

**He picked up his coffee and lifted the mug to his lips, but Carolyn's hand reached for it and set it back onto the table.**

**"Actually…I thought it would be a good idea for you to move into _my _apartment," she said calmly.**

**"_Shit!_" He gasped and choked, swinging his head away to cough violently against his coat sleeve. He was glad she'd not allowed him to take that gulp of coffee. In fact, it was precognitive of her, else she'd be wearing the mouthful by now. His body wracked in protest of the phlegm that had gone down the wrong way, and he rode it out accompanied by some useless thumps on his back by Barek. Getting himself under control, he looked back at her, tears from the coughing fit smarting his eyes.**

**Her eyes scanned his face in alarm. "It's bigger, roomier," she continued, but with less confidence. "Granted, yours is closer to OnePP but mine's on a less congested route. I wouldn't expect you to give up your lease, you know, just in case…but you could sublet it–"**

**"Whoa! Carolyn! Slow down!" Logan grabbed her shoulders, his fingers digging in until he managed to quell his panic. Absently rubbing where he'd grabbed her, his fingers slid down her arms and clasped her hands, drawing her to him. Nose to nose, he breathed in deeply, searching her eyes and allowing her to see a little of the anxiety in his.**

**"You're doing it again," he said, his voice hoarse. He cleared his throat. "You're–"**

**She nodded quickly and dropped her eyes. "–steam-rollering you. I'm sorry. I just know what I want."**

**"And you go out and get it." He envied her that, her conviction. It wasn't necessarily a flaw, but she had to look at the other side of the equation. "I learned that about you. Very quickly. _You _have to learn–"**

**"–to think of the other person." She looked up and his heart squeezed at the remorse on her face. "I worked on my own for so long, I got out of the habit."**

**"And you have to stop finishing my sentences." He smiled to lessen the criticism.**

**She grinned. "Oh. Isn't that a sign of a good match? _Sympatico_?"**

**He let go of her hands and sat back. "Maybe." Crossing his arms over his chest, he studied her. Now that the shock had worn off, Logan examined how he felt about her announcement. He surprised himself in not feeling like tearing out of the diner and leaving her there.**

**"You gonna let me think about this?" he asked, not acceding to anything other than a consideration of the idea.**

**Barek smiled slowly and leaned her cheek on a fist, studying him. "Of course. I hadn't meant to blurt it out like that."**

**"I bet you didn't. I credit you with more intelligence than that."**

**She pulled a face at him and Logan grinned. Barek was carefree, more impulsive. _Bubbly_. Her decision was obviously right for her, but was it right for him? It put him in a good position, though, to talk her out of initiating a confrontation with Nicole Wallace, and he wasn't above bribery.**

**"You gotta do something for me then," he said, fixing her with what he hoped was a 'no argument allowed' look.**

**"Anything, Mike," she smiled, unsuspecting, sitting back as the waitress delivered her salad.**

**Logan waited until the waitress withdrew, then dropped his bombshell. "Back out of Goren's idea on netting Wallace. I don't want you within a mile of that woman."**

**Barek's smile slid from her face, as Logan knew it would. "Mike…I…I can't. I agreed."**

**"Then disagree. He can't force you. You're not on the job. This is Goren's vendetta, not yours." His voice rang with the urgency he felt in his gut.**

**"But Alex… Nicole may come after her still." She stabbed her salad with a fork, and Logan got the feeling she was pretending it was he.**

**"We don't know that. Just because Goren believes it, doesn't mean it's so."**

**Barek abandoned her salad to flick a look at him through her lashes.**

**"Yeah, I know. I realized my mistake as soon as I said it. Well?"**

**"I can't make a promise I won't keep. You gonna let _me_ think about it?" she asked, throwing his words back at him.**

**"It's come to this, has it? The blackmailer being blackmailed."**

**"Something like that." Her smile was mischievous. Barek was certainly more light-hearted than he'd ever seen her and Logan hoped he wouldn't do anything to dispel that.**

**He leaned forward. "And if I say yes?"**

**"I still can't guarantee anything."**

**"That's what I thought." He suddenly felt deflated, their conversation turning sour for him. Rather than subject her to his own brand of bad humor, he stood and held out his hand. "Let's get out of here."**

**She looked up at him, her mouth open. "But my lunch. I've barely touched it."**

**He scooped up her plate, and dragged her toward the counter. "Get it to go. I need some fresh air."**

**oOo**

**Goren set the pace back to the Precinct with his hands in his pockets, confident Eames could keep up with him as he forged his way through the pedestrians. She was right behind him, fit enough to not even wheeze as she followed in his wake.**

**Pausing only to open the door of the building for her, he didn't expect her shoving him through the door and over to the side of the foyer. His back to the wall, he faced a bristling Eames with her hands on her hips and her brows flat above her eyes.**

**"What's got _into_ you?" she spat. "Tell me now before we take another step."**

**He could have prevaricated. Hell, he could have told her to mind her own business, but he wouldn't do that to her.**

**"Logan."**

**"What about him? You don't have to worry about Logan. That's Carolyn's job. One she seems prepared to take on twenty-four seven, good luck to her."**

**Goren shook his head, his eyes closed, confusion and guilt shrouding his judgment. "He doesn't want to use Barek to entrap Nicole. Or if we do, he wants to be part of it. Impossible. She'll know him."**

**"You don't want to use her either, do you?"**

**Dying inside, he admitted the truth. "No."**

**"It's not her battle. Or Logan's."**

**"No." Nicole had him, with no resources or means to go after her. She was torturing him even when she was nowhere in his radius.**

**"It's ours."**

**His eyes flew open. "No! I will not allow you to–"**

**"Then you have no right to involve the others."**

**"I can't…do it alone."**

**"Then let Logan help you without involving Carolyn. He's _got_ to feel protective of her, especially now. Isn't that why you don't want me involved?"**

**He gazed upon her, so small yet far from helpless. Her eyes were flashing the 'don't mess with me' light that compensated her lack of stature. It was this spit and fire in her that ultimately turned him on. Coupled with the respect and esteem in which he held her, this made her the perfect woman for him. He didn't want that to change.**

**"I feel responsible," he said, his jaw clenched. "For Nicole's victimization of you. If it weren't for me–"**

**"Any perp we apprehend has the potential to go gunning for you. If not Nicole, then someone else with a chip on their shoulder. It could have happened the other way. A perp could have sought to get to me through you."**

**With his back proverbially against the wall, Goren saw no option but to agree with her, but he gave a last ditch effort at getting out of a partnership with Logan.**

**"Aren't you worried?" he asked. "Logan and I may …kill each other in the first round."**

**"Nah," she scoffed. "I trust you. He'll mouth off 'cos that's what he does, but you'll never give him a stationary target. You'll find your meeting ground."**

**Goren raised his brows in disbelief. "Let's hope you're right."**

**oOo**

_**tbc**_


	4. Chapter 4

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings" **

_**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**_

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply.**_

_**A/N: I hope you ladies aren't in too much of a hurry to see Nicole brought down because this story is all about Bobby's and Logan's journey, not apprehending Nicole Wallace. She's actually going to be very secondary to the struggles these men have when thrown together and trying to confront their feelings and relationships with their chosen women.**_

_**That being said, I think you'll truly enjoy what does happen to Nicole at the end. :-)**_

**oOo**

_**Previously on Cowboys, Pair of Kings…**_

_**Goren set the pace back to the Precinct with his hands in his pockets, confident Eames could keep up with him as he forged his way through the pedestrians. She was right behind him, fit enough to not even wheeze as she followed in his wake.**_

_**Pausing only to open the door of the building for her, he didn't expect her shoving him through the door and over to the side of the foyer. His back to the wall, he faced a bristling Eames with her hands on her hips and her brows flat above her eyes.**_

_**"What's got into you?" Alex spat. "Tell me now before we take another step."**_

_**Goren could have prevaricated. Hell, he could have told her to mind her own business, but he wouldn't do that to her.**_

_**"Logan."**_

_**"What about him? You don't have to worry about Logan. That's Carolyn's job. One she seems prepared to take on twenty-four seven, good luck to her."**_

_**Goren shook his head, his eyes closed, confusion and guilt shrouding his judgment. "He doesn't want to use Barek to entrap Nicole. Or if we do, he wants to be part of it. Impossible. She'll know him."**_

_**"You don't want to use her either, do you?"**_

_**Dying inside, he admitted the truth. "No." **_

_**"It's not her battle. Or Logan's."**_

_**"No." Nicole had him, with no resources or means to go after her. She was torturing him even while she was nowhere in his radius. **_

_**"It's ours."**_

_**His eyes flew open. "No! I will not allow you to–"**_

_**"Then you have no right to involve the others."**_

_**"I can't…do it alone."**_

_**"Then let Logan help you without involving Carolyn. He's got to feel protective of her, especially now. Isn't that why you don't want me involved?"**_

_**He gazed upon her, so small yet far from helpless. Her eyes were flashing the 'don't mess with me' light that compensated her lack of stature. It was this spit and fire in her that ultimately turned him on. Coupled with the respect and esteem in which he held her, it made her the perfect woman for him. He didn't want that to change.**_

_**"I feel responsible," he said, his jaw clenched. "For Nicole's victimization of you. If it weren't for me–"**_

_**"Any perp we apprehend has the potential to go gunning for you. If not Nicole, then someone else with a chip on their shoulder. It could have happened the other way. A perp could have sought to get to me through you."**_

_**With his back proverbially against the wall, Goren saw no option but to agree with her, but he gave a last ditch effort at getting out of a partnership with Logan.**_

_**"Aren't you worried?" he asked. "Logan and I may …kill each other in the first round."**_

_**"Nah," she scoffed. "I trust you. He'll mouth off 'cos that's what he does, but you'll never give him a stationary target. You'll find your meeting ground."**_

_**Goren raised his brows in disbelief. "Let's hope you're right."**_

**oOo**

**Chapter Four**

**Looking up as Barek and Logan returned to the briefing room, Goren nodded at the other man and pushed a file in his direction.**

**"I need…some explanation. With this," he said by way of holding out the olive branch, Eames' final direction to him before she let him off the foyer wall. He's survived their encounter without too much grief, considering he had more or less intimated she couldn't look after herself around Nicole.**

**"Where's Eames?" Barek asked.**

**Goren tilted his head toward the bullpen. "At her desk. She wants you to join up with her there."**

**Barek nodded, then smiled at Logan before leaving the room. Goren watched her go, thinking again of their changed circumstances, hers and his. Which couple was doing the right thing? Splitting a working relationship in order to have a personal one, or enhancing a successful working relationship with a close personal one.**

**He turned back to Logan as he resumed his seat and indicated the two separate piles of files in front of him. Since returning from lunch to his allotted task, Bobby noticed a pattern in the other two detectives' interrogations. He kept track of those that Logan did with Barek and without, noticing that he excluded her from time to time, and the two piles in front of him were the result.**

**"Why wasn't Barek present in some of your interrogations?" he asked.**

**Logan looked idly at the stacks. "Maybe she was in the can at the time."**

**Goren eyed him skeptically, his chin tilting at the prevarication.**

**"Look," Logan explained. "I'm antsy about taking interrogations with her, okay? She hijacked me on our first case. Brought my past into the mix, without runnin' it by me first. Made me skittish ever since."**

**Not convinced, Goren leaned forward on his chair. 'Skittish' was hardly a word he would associate with Logan. He flipped through one of the stacks, opening each file on top of each other, then tapped the top one with a finger.**

**"All these suspects are women. The ones she sat in on with you are men." He flicked a hand toward the other stack. "I see a pattern, Logan. Do you see a pattern?"**

**"You would." Logan leaned back in his chair, using distance as a barrier between them and scrutinized Goren. "Okay, I'm not above usin' my sex as a strategy. Turn on the charm," he held out his hand, palm up, "boy next door, sophisticated man of the world – whatever works."**

**"How does that last one work?" Goren scoffed.**

**Logan snorted. "Nice jab. Hey, I try. Sometimes I hit it. Sometimes I don't. Put another woman at the table with me and I lose that chance at intimacy with a perp of the opposite sex."**

**"Mind games, Logan-style."**

**"If you like."**

**"How does Barek take that?"**

**"She's okay with it. If she jibs, I remind her about that first interrogation and she gets the guilts and backs off." He folded his arms across his chest, putting up another barrier. "Is this relevant to our work product?"**

**"Not really. I was curious."**

**Logan's shoulders shifted, a slight dropping of his guard. "You're not gonna find anything. This is a waste of our time."**

**"My time, anyway."**

**"Yeah, I know. You wanna chase Nicole." Logan dropped all pretense at casualness and leaned over the desk toward Goren. "Well, I'm not letting you use Barek." **

**Tension clawed at Bobby's neck, but he couldn't make an issue of it after he'd already agreed to Eames' insistence he back off. **

**"I'm not. I've been overruled."**

**"Yeah? Who?"**

**Goren wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "Looks like I gotta let Nicole go after all."**

**"I wouldn't sweat it," Logan said, his hands comfortably linked on the desk in front of him. "I've a feeling we haven't seen the last of her."**

**Goren resented Logan's personal win. His shoulders hunched, Bobby searched the desks outside the conference room. Barek was seated at his, opposite Eames, chin tucked into her neck, eyes fixed on Alex as she spoke. The frown on Eames' face and the flick of her hair from her cheek meant she was participating in the conversation but not particularly liking it. **

**He and Logan weren't the only ones on the defensive. **

**Eames glanced over and saw him watching her. A slight curve to her lips and lifting of the frown was the only acknowledgement she gave him, but it was enough. His chest swelled with the force of his protectiveness of her, his determination to keep her safe from Nicole renewed. **

**"That's what I'm afraid of," he said quietly, holding her gaze and projecting all of his commitment to her in that one moment.**

**"How 'bout a compromise?" Logan suggested, drawing Goren's gaze. "_We_ join forces, you and I, and do what we have to do, not what we should do."**

**Goren indicated the files on the table with distaste. "That's your MO, not mine."**

**"Yeah, I know, you intellectualize them into confession. Maybe that's why Nicole slips through every time. She needs some caveman-style beating _over_ the head, instead of inside her head."**

**The temper Logan so easily ignited in Goren, erupted, locking his limbs and making his body tremble. **

**"Ya think she's gonna fall for your…_charm_," Bobby spat, "and write out a confession for you? She'll run rings round you, man, and interrogate you 'til…" He stabbed a finger in the other man's face. "…'til _you_ feel so guilty you'll think you're the perp. If you got any secrets, you better erase them somehow, 'cos she'll find them and throw 'em in your face."**

**He pushed back his chair, the legs scraping loudly in Logan's stunned silence. Leaning over the table, his hands flat on its surface, Goren fought to bring his temper under control.**

_**This wasn't going to work.**_

**oOo**

**"You don't approve of our relationship, do you?" Carolyn asked Alex. **

**Once indicating Carolyn should use Bobby's desk while they waded through the files Alex had dumped between them, Alex had continued to peruse the work in front of her. She wanted to get this out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible, and get back to the real work with Bobby.**

**Alex looked up now and frowned slightly. She recognized that Carolyn didn't and wouldn't need her approval, but she obviously wanted her opinion. Treading warily, Alex had no intention of committing herself to the pros and cons of sleeping with one's partner, particularly when she herself was hardly on higher moral ground. **

**"It's none of my business," she said.**

**"That's not an answer to my question."**

**Alex should have known Carolyn wouldn't be fobbed off so easily. Playing safe hadn't worked. Playing honest would only plunge her into her own ethical quagmire. "The possibility of become attracted to your partner is always on the cards." Alex, however, was mystified by what Carolyn saw in Logan.**

**"That's not what I meant and I think you know it. You don't approve of Mike."**

**Being reminded that Barek was a profiler, Alex was even more desperate to get out of the discussion. "You could do better." Her eyes dropped to the open file in front of her, dismissing the conversation.**

**"What don't you like about him?"**

**Alex sighed and gave up all pretence that she might get out of this easily. She shut the file, carefully folding her hands on top. "If you genuinely want my opinion, I'll give it, but I won't whitewash it."**

**"I expect nothing less, Alex."**

**"Logan's a good detective. His procedure," she tapped the closed file with her hand, "is sound and he gets results. His methods are suspect at times, as indicated by his history with the force, but, with one exception, he's managed to skate on hard ice and survive. On the job, one could confidently place their life in his hands." **

**And that's probably about as positive as Alex could get.**

**"But," Carolyn smiled, tilting her head to encourage her to continue.**

**Alex' returned smile held no humor. "I wouldn't be putting my heart in his hands." It wasn't the most tactful thing to say but Carolyn pushed for this so she had to wear it.**

**"What makes you think I am?" Carolyn asked. "It could be purely physical."**

**Alex instinctively knew the other woman would be careful when it came to relationships. She was too level-headed to lightly take on a man like Mike Logan.**

**"But it's not," Alex stated. **

**Carolyn looked down, chewing the inside of her lip. "No, it's not." **

**"It's your turn to be honest," Eames said quietly.**

**Carolyn settled deeper into the chair, and leaned over Goren's desk, playing with the corner of his leather document book. "We've partnered for nearly a year now. I've heard all the stories. I've seen him at his best and his worst. I like what I see." **

**She took a breath, glanced toward the briefing room and sighed. "The physical side of our relationship… _Hell!_ The sex is better than I even hoped for. I've never known a man of his age with such a zest for love-making." **

**Alex felt herself being squared off by the other woman, but she didn't blink. **

**"As for breaking my heart," Carolyn continued, "I'm going into this with my eyes open. I'm watching him and I'm watching out for me. I'm not starry-eyed, but I…" She smiled at last. "…I am smitten."**

**Alex watched her carefully, her opinion of Carolyn and her motives confirmed, but something had been left out. **

**"I notice you didn't use the 'L' word," Alex prompted.**

**Carolyn's eyes widened, then she looked away, blushing through her enviable olive complexion. "Hell! All right. I'm in love. But I'm not a giddy teenager. I'm not in my carefree twenties. I want this man in my life as more than a work partner." **

**Bobby's document book was being dug into by long strong nails and Alex hoped her partner wouldn't notice. **

**"And I'm willing to give up Major Case for him," Carolyn said firmly. "In a heartbeat."**

**Alex saw the chance to explore the validity of her own options and Bobby's and her decision to keep their affair a secret. "You could have both," she said, "if you kept your…relationship circumspect."**

**Carolyn laughed. "Mike is _not_ a circumspect man, Alex. Surely you know that? And his sense of fun and devilry drags me in with him and I like it. We got caught before we even _thought_ about keeping our affair guarded."**

**"You chose to leave Major Case? Or did Deakins force your hand?" What would she, Alex, do in the same situation? She had to consider it and be prepared. **

**"It was my decision, but it's best for both of us."**

**"Deakins has an expertise in pairing personalities," Alex said. "_You _were chosen for Logan, not the other way round. It's a combination that worked. The next one may not."**

**"With Deakins' leaving too, that's your next Captain's problem," Carolyn reminded her. "As for leaving? I'm honoring departmental policy. I'm not embarrassed by our affair and don't want to hide it, and I'm leaving us both an escape plan." Carolyn pushed Bobby's document folder across the desk and Alex fretted over her next choice of toy. **

**Picking up Bobby's favorite pen, Carolyn jabbed it onto his blotter and Alex winced. "We won't have to make the relationship work for the sake of our working together," Carolyn said.**

**Alex conceded to her logic there. She, herself, had to work at her working partnership with Bobby even before their relationship became physical. **

**"Logan's okay with this?" she asked. "I got the impression he didn't get any choice." She tensed as Bobby's pen hovered near Carolyn's mouth.**

**"I'm not perfect either, Alex. It was wrong of me, but I didn't even tell him what I'd decided." She tossed Bobby's pen onto his desk and folded her arms, hopefully deciding to contain her restless fingers by force. "He's jibbing at the bit, but he'll come around." **

**Alex relaxed and gave her first genuine smile. "When I first heard, I was feeling sorry for you. Now, I'm not so sure."**

**Carolyn smiled back. "Let me assure you then. That man doesn't stand a chance. I know all his moves before he's even thought of them, let alone made them."**

**"Then I'll give my congratulations now and start organizing the hen's night tomorrow." She tossed her hair from her cheek and retrieved Bobby's pen and a sheet of blank paper. "You can give me the names of your friends now," she joked.**

**"Don't forget the baby shower," Carolyn laughed. "My biological clock's been marching for a while now."**

**Alex shook her head, amazed at how quickly the conversation had shifted from profound to light-hearted. The thought of Mike Logan as a father shocked her a little though. Bobby would make a far better parent, his devotion to yet another challenge in his life a given. Alex' ease evaporated, her stomach tightening at the thought of Bobby fathering a child of hers. She looked across to the briefing room and found him watching her. They locked eyes and her heart tripped and raced. She suddenly, fiercely, wanted it so.**

**"Now, back to work," Carolyn said briskly. "Or, before we do, about Brie Archer. I should contact her soon and get that ball rolling."**

**Alex swallowed hard and wrested her attention back to Carolyn. "Uh, no…no point. Bobby's not going through with that lead."**

**"Not–? But?"**

**"He…we have no right involving you." Alex resented the importance Bobby had placed upon this threat, imaginary or otherwise. Nor did she appreciate his lack of faith in her in countering any attack by Nicole Wallace. But in front of Carolyn, she had to champion his decision. Alex recognized and accepted it, albeit grudgingly, as yet another skirmish that she wouldn't win with her partner.**

**"But he doesn't have any other leads, does he?" **

**"He's put it on the backburner." _Or until he and Logan come up with a plan._**

**"But–"**

**"Don't stress it, Carolyn." Alex swept a hand over the stack of files between them. "We've got work to do here. Let's get that out of the way first." To make her point, she pushed the closed file in front of her to the side and grabbed another from the pile.**

**Pretending to peruse it, she was aware of Carolyn watching her. She held her breath, waiting to see if Barek accepted her dismissal. It was touch and go, the other woman being too smart to be fooled, and certainly not for long. The silence lingered and Alex chanced a quick look upward. **

**Carolyn was scanning Bobby's desk then seemed to pause. She grabbed Bobby's post-it pad and scribbled something on it, then shoved the top page in her trouser pocket.**

**Frowning, Alex lifted her head but a loud scraping from the briefing room diverted her. Seeking the source of the disturbance, she saw Bobby on his feet, head lowered, shoulders hunched over the table. Alex recognized the signs of her partner fiercely fighting back his temper. Instinctively starting out toward the room, Alex stopped to quickly scan Bobby's desk for what caught Carolyn's interest and saw a yellow post-it note attached to his phone. A name and phone number in Bobby's handwriting had been scrawled upon it. _Brie Archer, 555 2960. _**

**Alex had no doubt that Carolyn had jotted down the number and sequestered it for future reference. She wouldn't say anything now, but filed away the knowledge for later. **

**Meanwhile, she had a disaster in the briefing room to avert.**

**oOo**

**Goren's display of temper didn't phase Logan at all. **

**He'd taken fists in the face for less provocation, but at least he'd understood why they were coming. Goren's temper seemed to come out of nowhere. Nicole was the trigger, but in Logan's opinion, Goren gave the woman too much credit as a menace. Granted, Logan didn't fully know what went down between Wallace and Goren at the Mateus estate, and she had killed Logan's ex-girlfriend for nothing more than an act of disloyalty, but the perps Logan had known killed for a lot less.**

**"Just because she pushes your buttons, Goren," Logan said, not bothering to lower his voice, "doesn't mean she's gonna reduce me to incompetence in an interrogation room. Maybe that's what she needs. Someone she _hasn't_ got pegged."**

**"You don't know." Goren shook his head tiredly, refusing to look at Logan. "What you're talking about."**

**"Bobby?" **

**Logan turned to see Eames appear at the door, her eyes worried and scanning Goren. **

**Carolyn was right behind her and came to stand by Logan's side, a hand stealing to his shoulder. Her touch immediately banked the antagonism building within him and he sighed out the tension.**

**Goren flapped a hand at Eames but he now fixed his gaze on Logan. "I was ready to call the whole thing off. But now… You in this or not?"**

**"In what, Bobby?" Eames asked, but Goren ignored her.**

**"I'm in," Logan said, flexing the shoulder Carolyn wasn't squeezing.**

**"Then we pack up now and take this back to my place."**

**"Take what back, Bobby?" Eames asked, her voice uncertain with alarm. "The files?"**

**Goren swung his head to look at her. "You come too, Eames."**

**"I intend to," she said firmly.**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	5. Chapter 5

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings" **

_**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**_

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply.**_

_**A/N: This has been a long time coming, but I've changed jobs and the learning curve and change of pace is incredible. I've not had a moment to do any creative writing until these Easter holidays. **_

**oOo**

**Previously on "Cowboys, Pair of Kings"… **

_**Goren's display of temper didn't phase Logan at all. **_

_**He'd taken fists in the face for less provocation, but at least he'd understood why they were coming. Goren's temper seemed to come out of nowhere. Nicole was the trigger, but in Logan's opinion, Goren gave the woman too much credit as a menace. Granted, Logan didn't fully know what went down between Wallace and Goren at the Mateus estate, and she had killed Logan's ex-girlfriend for nothing more than an act of disloyalty, but the perps Logan had known killed for a lot less.**_

_**"Just because Nicole Wallace pushes your buttons," Logan said, his temper matching Goren's, "doesn't mean she's gonna reduce me to incompetence in an interrogation room. Maybe that's what she needs. Someone she hasn't got pegged."**_

_**"You don't know," Goren forced through clenched teeth, "what you're talking about."**_

_**"Bobby?" **_

_**Logan turned to see Eames appear at the door, her eyes worried and scanning Goren. **_

_**Carolyn was right behind her and came to stand by Logan's side, a hand stealing to his shoulder. Her touch immediately banked the antagonism building within him and he sighed out the tension.**_

_**Goren flapped a hand at Eames but he now fixed his gaze on Logan. "I was ready to call the whole thing off. But now… You in this or not?"**_

_**"In what, Bobby?" Eames asked, but Goren ignored her.**_

_**"I'm in," Logan said, flexing the shoulder Carolyn wasn't squeezing.**_

_**"Then we pack up now and take this back to my place."**_

_**"Take what back, Bobby?" Eames asked, her voice alarmed. "The files?"**_

_**Goren swung his head to look at her. "You come too, Eames."**_

_**"I intend to." **_

**oOo**

**Chapter Five **

**"Goren, we need to go to the can," Logan stated as he surged from the seat and headed toward the briefing room door, pushing Goren ahead with his momentum. It was no small feat, the other detective being a slightly bigger man, but Logan had the element of surprise on his side.**

**He had him out the door and in the main part of the squad room before Goren planted his feet. Swinging out of Logan's grasp, Bobby rounded back on him.**

**"What the–?!"**

**"You're not thinkin' straight, Bobby-boy," Logan persisted, managing to drag him a few more feet. "I thought we weren't involving the wo–" He broke off as Eames and Barek joined them. Plastering a false smile on his face, he pushed Goren from behind and got him moving again.**

**"Logan–!"**

**"Ladies…" Logan couldn't tell if it was both women who had called him or just Eames, but he merely swung his head around as he kept pushing. "Would you excuse us for a minute?"**

**In the corridor, Logan gave up and let the other man go, stopping to lean his forehead against the cool smooth wall that right now seemed to have less resistance than his new, albeit temporary, partner.**

**"What was that?!" Goren demanded, slapping Logan on the shoulder and shifting his weight on his feet.**

**Logan kept staring at the floor near his toes. "I thought we were doin' this alone. You and I. Yet you're draggin' Eames into it one minute after we'd agreed."**

**"I gotta keep her… near me… safe… where I can see her."**

**Logan jerked, then turned slowly around, shock stretching his eyes. "You're kiddin' me! You've gone too far… or mad… take your pick. She is _not_ gonna to let you smother her."**

**"I– uh… Nicole–"**

**"For chrissake, Eames can look after herself. But you–? You can't live in her pocket." Logan's eyes narrowed. "Am I missing something here?" He took a step closer and Goren retreated, which made Logan even more suspicious. "What gives?"**

**"Nothin'," Goren said hastily, too hastily.**

**Logan took another step toward Goren then caught movement at the doors to the squad room. "Cool it, buddy. Here's the women. Now, you drive Eames home and I'll drive Barek and then we meet again at your place. Got it?"**

**Goren said nothing, so Logan moved closer and snarled into his face. "This is what we agreed. _You got it?_"**

**"Now who's being protective," Goren mumbled and stepped away.**

**Logan didn't fire back when Goren was right. He didn't want Carolyn anywhere near this vendetta of Goren's, not when it involved a lunatic like Nicole Wallace.**

**"Bobby?" Eames joined them first, suspicion pinching her face.**

**"It's…it's okay." His gaze slid to Logan, then he folded his arms defensively in front of him. "We were just on our way… to the uh, garage. I'll…I'll drive." He loped off, heading toward the lift.**

**Alex' chin came up and she flicked a tight look at Mike before following.**

**Logan blew a noisy breath through pursed lips and brought up Goren's rear with Barek at his side. He ignored Carolyn's inquiring look, but placed a reassuring hand at her waist.**

**"What was that all about?" she asked, and Logan winced at the inevitability of the question.**

**Shrugging, he dredged up a forced measure of nonchalance. "Just Goren being Goren. Does he need a reason?"**

**"Someone's got an agenda here," Carolyn said, stopping abruptly at the lift. "But I'm not sure who it is or _what_ it is."**

**"I'm thinking _everyone's_ got an agenda. I'm just trying to work out what Goren's is."**

**Logan molded her from behind as they waited for the elevator car to arrive, but she pulled away from him impatiently but despite his fleeting irritation that she felt he was responsible, he couldn't blame her. If she construed his behavior as erratic, she was probably right. He himself wasn't sure what he was doing or why, except that he'd somehow agreed to help Goren.**

**The lift opened and Logan followed the others in, wondering how the hell he was going to give Carolyn the brush-off and live to tell about it.**

**oOo**

**Heading toward the driver's side of the SUV in the OnePP garage, Goren held out his hand to Eames for the keys. They had a standing agreement that she took the wheel, but should he decide to drive, he need only indicate his wish, no questions asked. It would be fortuitous in this instance when Alex realized too late that she was being driven to her home, not his.**

**Goren met Logan's eyes over the roof of Barek's sedan. A infinitesimal flick of the other man's head at Eames resent his earlier message. _We lose the women._**

**Logan slid into the driver's seat and Goren followed suit, folding himself into the SUV to tap his fingers on the steering wheel while he waited for Eames to buckle up. He sat ramrod in the seat, anxiety making him feel jumpy and indecisive, but he knew he had to keep her diverted while he negotiated the route to her house, not his.**

**"Uh, Eames… you struck me as… intolerant of uh, necking… in cars," he said as he reversed the vehicle and nosed it in behind Logan's.**

**"They're not teenagers, Bobby," she said, staring hard at the couple in the car ahead. "What do you think?"**

**Goren negotiated the merge into the NYC traffic and settled low in his seat, recognizing a chance to keep her absorbed.**

**"There's a spontaneity to them that we…um, I lack. It's almost… enviable."**

**"_You_ may think so."**

**The silence stretched between them, oppressive and disturbing. Goren's palms were sweaty on the wheel, mixed emotions tearing at him. He was glad Alex didn't want that from him but alarmed by the feeling that she was angry at him without his knowing why.**

**"Is that what you want, Bobby?" she asked. "We bring our relationship to everyone's notice? We jeopardize what we've got just so I can sit on your lap in the squad room?"**

**Goren's jaw dropped in horror. "I don't think… inappropriate… You wouldn't…"**

**"Says the man that made love to me in the staff lounge of the local library."**

**"That was different. No one could have disturbed us. No one saw–"**

**"That didn't occur to Logan and Barek. In the briefing room. Didn't seem to worry them they got caught either." She blew out an angry breath. "I can wait until we're behind closed doors, Bobby."**

**Goren nodded, relieved. He noticed Eames looking out the front windscreen, a frown growing as her fingers plucked at the seat belt buckle. Stretching out a hand, he took hers and brought it to rest on her lap.**

**"Nothing wrong with holding hands in the squad car, is there?" he asked.**

**"I guess not, but Bobby… why didn't you take the turnoff back there?" She flipped her head behind them, then zeroed in on him again.**

**"New short cut." He slid his hand up higher, playing with her fingers as he probed her inner thigh.**

**She snatched her hand away. "What are you doing, Bobby?" she asked, her voice rising with angered hurt. "This isn't like you and it's not the way to your apartment."**

**Goren shut his eyes briefly in remorse. He had no right to try and fool her like this. He was lousy at deceiving her and deserved her ire.**

**"I'm sorry. Logan has… er, convinced me that he and I can do this together. Without involving you and uh, Barek. Go after Nicole, that is."**

**"I see. And if I disagree?"**

**"You intimated as much… earlier… that I should let him."**

**"I didn't mean for you to ignore me. Or shut me out."**

**Goren shriveled inside, the hurt in her voice too much for him to bear. But it was more important she be safe. "I know, but I don't want…can't let… anything happen to you."**

**"You're convinced Nicole's going to come after me?"**

**He nodded, swallowing, his eyes riveted on the traffic ahead.**

**"I won't…_can't_ live like that," she said, her conviction lodged between them. "Looking over my shoulder or having you do it for me. I wanted to come with you this evening but now I'm not so sure. If it means being watched by you as if I were a priceless exhibit on public display, then…I'm not so sure."**

**Goren's brows knitted. "I'm not sure I understand–"**

**"Forget it, Bobby. Just take me home. Oh, that's right, you already are."**

**He felt he was drowning here. It floored him he could read and interpret the criminal mind, whereas Alex' head was a mystery to him.**

**"Do you want me to come back…? Later?"**

**"No, thanks."**

**Goren jerked as if she'd hit him, the rebuff an almost physical blow. He hoped like hell he knew what he was doing.**

**But he doubted it.**

**oOo**

**Logan had no idea how Goren was going to accomplish leaving Eames at her home and still have his hide intact, but it wasn't Logan's problem. He had to look after his own skin. With Barek, he knew it had to be the direct approach or nothing.**

**"I'm driving you home, Carolyn," he said, swinging into a gap in the traffic, "and going onto Goren's place alone. I can drop you at your door or leave you with something more satisfying, but the bottom line is Goren and I–"**

**"Fine, whatever," she said, looking out the sedan window, seemingly unperturbed by his announcement.**

**Logan tucked in his chin in shock. He was too overcome by the ease of the victory to appreciate his win.**

**"Fine–? The uh, dropping off or the fu–?"**

**"Either way," she said, still preoccupied with the traffic outside.**

**Logan shifted on the car seat and darted a quick look at her before scoping the traffic for a lane change. "You alright? I haven't done anything to make you mad, have I?"**

**Barek turned away from her contemplation of New York's passing endless parade and Logan's skin prickled with the intensity with which she studied him.**

**"I'm amazed. Totally amazed," she said. "You're such a self-sufficient, independent jock on the outside, but inside you're as insecure as an unloved little b–"**

**Logan's peripheral vision caught her biting her lip as she dropped her eyes to her lap. He forced himself to not react by concentrating on his driving.**

**"I'm sorry," she said, "that was a little too close–."**

**"Yes, it was, which could be why I'm ignoring it."**

**"I'm sorry, Mike."**

**"Don't sweat it." He staggered himself by meaning it. He knew Carolyn wouldn't deliberately slice him with a taunt and he trusted and felt reassured by that knowledge.**

**"You haven't, you know," she said quietly into his stunned silence.**

**"Uh, haven't what?"**

**She placed a hand on his thigh, its warmth and gentleness easing the bitterness. "Done anything to make me mad. I was preoccupied, that's all. What did you want to do again?"**

**"I was going to Goren's alone. Taking you home first, but he has to drop Alex off and she mightn't be so easy–" It was his turn to bite his lip.**

**"To get rid of?" She squeezed his leg and he caught her brief smile. "So you thought you might appease me with a little entertainment, Logan-style, to fill in time?"**

**He stretched his neck, easing the prickling confinement within his suddenly too-tight collar. "Something like that."**

**She chuckled and he relaxed a little more. The respite turned into something else as she slid her hand towards his inner thigh and inched toward his groin. "I think I can be… entertained."**

**Logan swallowed hard as he negotiated the turn toward her apartment and put his foot down. The suspicion in his brain that this had been too easy was swept away by the surge of feeling generated by her palm closing over him.**

**oOo**

**Pacing his apartment, Goren kept frowning over the time and checking the window for a sign of Logan. He was disgruntled and confused by Eames' dispatching him as soon as they arrived at her home and sweating over how it would affect their relationship. His nerves were strung tight to the point where the twinge in the back of his neck was developing into a full-blown headache.**

**He leaped toward the door at the first knock and after a cursory look through the peephole, swung it open.**

**"What took you so long?" he demanded as he let Logan in and indicated he take the sofa. The other man was looking pleased and relaxed, a direct contrast to the turmoil plaguing Goren.**

**"Carolyn wouldn't let me go." Logan threw himself on the sofa, spread his arms wide across its back and smiled broadly at Goren. "Not until… well, you know how it is…" He flung his hands in the air before settling them back against the upholstery.**

**"Do I? You tellin' me you got laid for dumping your partner and I got–? Forget it. What're you drinking?"**

**"Vodka if you've got it, coffee if you don't."**

**"I got it."**

**Goren heard the almost peevish sound in his voice but couldn't prevent it. The aftermath with Eames had left a bad taste in his mouth and the last person he wanted in his apartment was a self-satisfied prick like Logan. But he needed him, and he swallowed the bile in his throat as he went to find a bottle of vodka in the kitchen.**

**Grabbing some small consolation from the fact that it was the cooking vodka he used for his favorite sauce and wouldn't be of the drinking caliber Logan expected, he grabbed a bottled water from the fridge for himself and returned to his living room to see Logan with his head back on the sofa, eyes half-closed, a small smile on his lips.**

**The man had not only got himself laid, but laid well. Goren thrust the tumbler of vodka at him, then sat down in an armchair and cracked open his bottled water.**

**"So what's with the single bed?" Logan asked, taking a swig of his drink and grimacing. "I can do it on any surface, but when I top off a woman in the bedroom, I want as much room as I can for creativity."**

**Goren choked on his mouthful of water and leaned forward, his eyes smarting. "How do you–?!"**

**"Carolyn and I were in your apartment lookin' for you when you and Eames went missing. Didn't your landlord tell you? I was sure he would, he was so… disapproving."**

**"No…" Goren coughed, "…he didn't…"**

**"So how do you–?"**

**"I don't… have to answer that…"**

**"Suit yourself." Logan had another go at his drink, then put the unfinished tumbler onto the coffee table. "She wants me to move in with her." **

**"Huh?" Goren frowned, not sure from where that had come.**

**"Carolyn. Wants me to move into her apartment."**

**Goren's brows lifted, diverted from his preoccupation over Eames. "That's a serious step. You ever done it before?"**

**"Nope. Only a toothbrush and a change of clothes."**

**Before tackling the reason for their being here, Goren was more than willing to get a better understanding of the man with whom he hoped to collaborate. He pushed his thumb against his lips, thoughtful. **

**"She's very sure. You're not. I assume you haven't been…" He stabbed his head at Logan. "With her long. As…as lovers, I mean."**

**"This feels different."**

**"You gotta follow…your heart." Goren relaxed a little, feeling more comfortable with the conversation and with his own decision regarding Eames and their relationship.**

**Logan's brows shot up. **

**"If your heart's not involved… then stay… where you are."**

**"You know about affairs of the heart, Goren?"**

**"I know about a lot of things. Intellectually. If not by experience. Doesn't mean I can't advise."**

**"How'd you go with Eames?"**

**Goren's muscles locked. "I didn't…get laid…or anything like that! What are you suggesting, man?!"**

**"Hey! I didn't mean… I meant, was she pissed off?"**

**Goren's shoulders hunched. "Yeah, she was pissed off." He resented the chuckle the other man gave, dispersing the fleeting ignition of camaraderie. "She's feeling the lack of confidence I have in her over the Nicole sting," Goren explained then flayed himself for trying to justify the argument in front of Logan. "Which brings us to the reason why we are here. What have we got? If anything?"**

**Logan settled back onto the sofa, the scent of gossip dispelled. "If the woman is intent upon chippin' at you at the first available opportunity, she's closer to home than you hope. She needs to stay off the radar though. Very low profile."**

**"She has no… rich husband to protect her this time. If you had to hide someone in New York… where would you do it?"**

**Logan stared at Goren, then a slow smile pulled at his lips. "I know where the NYPD hid a detective that was an embarassment to them. For over ten years."**

**Goren stared back. "Staten Island."**

**Logan nodded.**

**"Likely?"**

**"Maybe. Maybe not even probable. But it's a place I know well."**

**Goren wasn't convinced, but it did have a glimmer of possibility. "Would you know _her_ places? She's an intelligent woman. She couldn't vegetate there. She would gravitate…toward educational institutions…libraries, bookshops, museums."**

**"Then that's where we start."**

**oOo**

**Carolyn dragged herself from the bed and scooped up her oversize t-shirt, slipping into it as she shuffled to the kitchen. Her body still tingled all over and her bones felt as heavy as iron pylons, her muscles thick cement, the lethargy left over from Mike's lovemaking too complete to leave her with any enthusiasm for moving, let alone preparing an evening meal.**

**Scooping an apple from the fridge, she made her way back into the living room, picking up discarded items of her clothing as she went. The location of where Mike had flung her bra defeated her, so she gave up, retrieving the post-it from the pocket of her coat before hanging it near the door.**

**She fished out her cell phone from the other pocket and, crunching into the apple, crumpled in a heap onto an armchair. Shaking the last vestiges of wooliness from her head, and along with it any guilt she was experiencing from going over the guys' heads, Carolyn dialed Bree Archer's number.**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	6. Chapter 6

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

_**Goren heads to Staten Island with Logan in the hope of flushing out Nicole Wallace.**_

**oOo**

**Chapter Six**

**The consistent throb of the American Legion Ferry should have lulled him into some semblance of calm, but Goren was a mass of coiled tension through unresolved issues and personal agendas that pulled at his equilibrium. Bobby Goren, when the world was right for him, was eccentric. Goren, with his world fraying at the edges, was angry and confused, lashing himself from within, his control slipping from without.**

**"Chill out, Goren!" Logan yelled above the noise of the ferry engines and the wind drumming at their ears. "Enjoy the scenery. None like it. I still see it in my dreams." The slap of the water below them sent up an unpleasant spray that smelled of salt, oil and city refuse. **

**Bobby looked out from the back deck of the ferry at the smog-shrouded skyline of a flat and uninviting Staten Island and bit back the need to quell the other's man bonhomie. "I'm still voting for the car!" he yelled back.**

**Hair whipped across Logan's face and he pushed it back. "I already told you the traffic is the downer! I quickly learned during my stint on the Island that commuting at this hour of the day is madness on the roads. The Ferry is direct and fast in comparison." **

**Bobby swung his gaze back to the slow progress of Manhattan's shoreline parading past them. He found that hard to believe. Boats didn't worry him, but there was nowhere to go on them. You were hemmed in, a prisoner of its agenda and timetable. Control was taken from him and Goren wasn't comfortable with loss of control.**

**"When we get there, we're stuck without wheels. Have you thought of that?" Goren sniped, finding it more difficult than normal to be civil.**

**"'Course I have." **

**Goren wished he could have wiped the smug look of Logan's face. **

**"I've arranged everything," he continued. "We're gonna get chauffeured, Bobby boy, don't worry. It could have been worse. **_**I**_** could have been your driver. Something tells me you'd never survive that with the nerves you've been showin' on this trip."**

**"That's not nerves, it's— Ah…forget it." **

**"You'd better tell me what's eating you, Goren. If I'm working with a ticking time bomb here, I wanna know."**

**Goren hesitated. Maybe, if the rumor about Logan's experience with women was true, he'd be able to acquire some pointers in managing a personal life that now had to expand to accommodate a strong personality like Eames who was nobody's fool.**

**"Eames," he began, "doesn't believe Nicole is a threat. Thinks she can handle it. Handle her." His head bowed under the strain to explain himself. "Thinks I'm over-protective—"**

**"Hey, man, moot point when we find this Nicole," Logan assured him. **

**"Don't you mean, 'if'?"**

**"I got contacts," Logan's teeth snapped into a grin on the last word. "If she's here, we'll find her." **

**Goren flexed his hands on the railing, shifting his feet with interest as the boat's engines kicked down a gear and slowed, the ferry's bow dipping toward a jetty. The rest of the passengers started to crowd his position near the gangplank, but Logan and he had been last on board and Goren fully intended being the first off this floating cage.**

**They swung onto the jetty and pushed through the surge of commuters waiting to board. Loudspeakers, announcing departures and arrivals, attempted to drown the buzz of voices as passengers pressed for their place in the queue.**

**Goren was arrested by Logan's hand on his arm and his curt nod toward a short blonde striding in the tide of people toward them. She had a thin alert face that reminded him of a greyhound, her hair cut into a pert style with bangs. With her hands in her pockets and coat flying behind her, she looked determined and competent.**

**"Frankie!"**

**"Mike." The woman's mouth twitched into a semblance of a smile as she nodded at Logan and checked Goren over with a swift look that took him in from toe to head. Goren's chin went down as he returned the stare.**

**"Frankie Silvera…" Logan stood between them, "…this is Robert Goren of Major Case—" The woman's eyes widened. "Yes, **_**the**_** Bobby Goren, none other."**

**Silvera stuck out a hand. "It's a pleasure, Detective. Gratifying to see you can slum it with the likes of Logan and still hold your dignity."**

**"Hey!" Logan protested. "Frankie really loves me. She just doesn't want to show it."**

**"Yeah, I love you like a boil on my butt." She flicked a look at him, her smile now warming. "What gives?" Her gaze encompassed both of them and Goren was impressed how she managed to look business-like and laid-back at the same time. She settled back on Logan, a frown growing. "You said meet me at the pier with a car and you'd tell all when you see me. I'm waiting."**

**Logan grabbed her shoulders and turned her toward the exit. Goren was surprised she didn't deck him until he remembered she'd partnered with Logan for some ten years and had to be used to his gall. **

**"Ya think I'm on the take?" Logan looked less than innocent. "You don't think I just came to knock heads with my old partner? You know, rub it in that **_**I**_** got off the Island."**

**"And brought your **_**new**_** partner home to meet 'Mom'?" Silvera scoffed. "And don't think I'm not where I want to be. You were the only one breaking his neck—"**

**"A man's gotta go back to his roots."**

**"Hobnob with the elite, you mean." She glanced behind her and Goren was subjected to another calculative sweep. "So, what can I do for you? I can't imagine you're regretting moving into Major Case."**

**"Nah… though Goren here can be a bit of a pain."**

**"So you **_**are **_**partners?" She indicated her car with a jab of her finger, a gun-metal gray sedan parked in the set-down zone.**

**Goren shook his head. "Temporary arrangement only."**

**Silvera laughed. "That's what I said about Logan and jinxed myself, 'cos I got stuck with him for nine years." **

**"And loved every minute." Logan took the front passenger seat of the squad car. "We're after a woman, Frankie. A blonde." **

**Silvera grabbed his car door, preventing him from closing it. "You still chasin' skirts? When're you gonna settle down?"**

**"I'm settlin'."**

**Goren folded himself into the back of the vehicle and watched the ease with which these two fell back into their old camaraderie. **

**"Yeah, sure," she chuckled, moving round to slide into the driver's side of the car. "You won't wanna know," she tossed over the seat to Goren, "how many times I've pretended to be this guy's wife just so he could douse cold water on too-eager girlfriends."**

**"Hey, I kept you pure when drug-runners wanted to put a ring through your—"**

**"This woman, Detective Silvera…" Goren said, breaking into their swapping tales, "… No point giving you her name 'cos she'd be using an alias. But… we can give you her M.O. and a photo."**

**"You wanna check our records?" Silvera looked over her shoulder at him again before indicating to pull out into traffic.**

**"Probably a waste of time." He shook his head. "She's the model law-abiding citizen when she wants to be."**

**"If you can give us any lead, Frankie," Logan said. "Circulate the photo. But keep it close. We don't want her knowin' she's under investigation."**

**"Is she likely to stick her neck out?" Silvera put her foot down and Goren grabbed for the armrest.**

**"Not without incentive," he gritted. The woman thought she was a racing driver. **

**"What's the incentive?"**

**"She's contesting a will. She needs respectable anonymity with influence. Can you, er, slow down…a little?"**

**Silvera frowned. "I think I know what you mean. I'll keep an eye and ear out." She braked for a corner, then powered into it and Goren could swear he felt the G-Force. Her eyes caught his in the rear-vision mirror. "You haven't had Logan drive you yet?" Goren shook his head. "You're in for an experience then." She turned to Logan in the front with her. "You want go out for drinks one day? Spend some time with the old crowd out of the office? Give me notice and I'll get a 'sitter."**

**"Yeah, sure," Logan nodded. "You can meet Carolyn as long as you promise not to make my ears burn."**

**"You got a steady?" Her head snapped toward him with brows raised. Goren wished she would keep her eyes on the road. **

**'Is that so hard to believe?"**

**She shrugged and Goren breathed easier as she turned her attention back to the traffic. "Stranger things have happened."**

**"I might move in with this one. Whad'ya think?"**

**"Give me the address and I'll send her flowers and a Get Well Soon card. What's with this blonde?" **

**"She's … bad news," Goren said.**

**Silvera pursed her lips. "We get our fair share even over here. What makes you think we've got her?"**

**"Manhattan's too hot for her," Logan said, turning round briefly to grin at Goren, "but she has this irrepressible need to be close to Goren here. A hunch tells me she's not too far away."**

**Silvera's eyes snapped back to the rear-vision mirror. "We talkin' fatal attraction here?"**

**Goren cringed. "**_**No!**_**"**

**"Somethin' like that." Logan laughed, then quickly sobered. "But even uglier. Vengeance."**

**"Okay," Silvera nodded. "I'll see what I can do. My contacts are even better now than before. If she's here, someone would have spotted new blood."**

**"Thanks, Silvera," Logan said. "I owe you one."**

**"You owe me plenty, Logan."**

**oOo**

**Silvera handed over the car at her Precinct and waved them off with Logan at the wheel. Goren felt nervous leaving the driving to the other man, considering Silvera's earlier comment, but he knew the streets and Goren didn't. **

**"Where to first?" Logan asked as they turned out into the street.**

**"She's running out of options… and her preferred employment of educational and government institutions should… run background checks that will, uh… flag her now. I'd try private bookshops first. Go from there." **

**"Done." **

**The car powered forward and Goren sat back in the seat and tried to ignore Logan's cutting the traffic and running stop signs. He turned his thoughts to Eames but drew a blank as to how to appease his partner for shutting her out of his investigation. When they had Nicole, **_**then**_** he could give her what she wanted. The contingency that he didn't know what she wanted made him rub his forehead and snipe at Logan to slow down. **

**oOo**

**Two days stuck in the briefing room with a mountain of closed case files was wearing on Alex' already thinned patience. She knew Bobby and Logan were somewhere on Staten Island but that was all. Deakins was insisting she check over Logan and Carolyn's recent cases in the light of the partners' admitted intimacy to prevent a lawyer discovering appeal fodder, but she couldn't fault their procedure and it was becoming tedious.**

**"I need a break, Carolyn," she said, standing abruptly and stretching. "Wanna join me?"**

**Carolyn pushed back her hair and nodded.**

**"I'm gonna stretch my legs too, so we'll go round the corner to a coffee shop."**

**Carolyn reached for the phone on the briefing table. "I'll let reception know we'll be available on our cells."**

**They found a table in the post-morning break, pre-lunch rush and Alex nursed her coffee as she watched Carolyn fish for conversation topics to keep the ball rolling. Alex realized they didn't have that much in common, but what they did share, though Carolyn didn't know it, was sleeping with their partners. Alex wanted to know more, even if she wasn't prepared to return the favor.**

**"You and Logan," she prompted.**

**Carolyn's eyes swept up from contemplating her coffee. "You wanna know? You're interested?" **

**Alex heard the scepticism in her voice and wasn't surprised. Alex acceded Logan was good at what he did, but she never made any bones about her thinking him an ass. Being fool enough to get caught with his pants down with his partner was the final straw.**

**"Why not? I thought you might want to talk about it. To someone impartial."**

**"Impartial?! You can't stand the man—"**

**"Not true," Alex said quickly. "I…tolerate him. He's a good detective. Yes, he rubs me up the wrong way, but I bet I'm not alone. You, on the other hand, seem to like it."**

**Carolyn's lips tightened into a semblance of a smile. "I don't like some of his methods, but they work. That's what counts. We get the arrest."**

**Alex tossed her head. "I was talking personally, not professionally."**

**Carolyn's eyes narrowed and she lifted her cup slowly to her lips with both hands. Alex returned her stare as Carolyn took a drink. "I'm not comfortable—"**

**"Talking about him? Why?"**

**"To you," Carolyn added pointedly.**

**Alex admired the woman's candor and knew she wouldn't get anything from her without laying bare her motives. "You think I have an agenda?"**

**"No, I thought you weren't interested. **_**Do**_** you have an agenda?"**

**Alex pressed her lips together. She'd been caught out, forgetting this woman was a profiler and a good one. She buried her nose in her coffee cup.**

**"You harboring a fetish for Logan yourself?" Carolyn asked.**

**Alex choked on her coffee, then hacked against her arm until her lungs cleared. Carolyn was unconcerned, waiting for her to get control of her breathing, before turning the screw.**

**"Give it up, Alex. What's this about?"**

**"I…uh…" She gulped in air, then tried not to cough again. "I was just…" she spluttered, "…trying to make…conversation."**

**Carolyn gave a knowing smile which told Alex she wasn't fooled.**

**oOo**

**Their search of Staten Island possibilities in concealing Nicole Wallace had been less than illuminating other than Goren learned never again to get in a car with Logan at the wheel.**

**He couldn't say he was surprised they'd come up empty, but it had been a hope to which he'd clung. At least, they could rule off the island and turn their attention elsewhere.**

**"We gotta do this Ferry thing again?" he'd asked when they reached the pier, hoping he'd at least get out of that.**

**"Sail or swim, Goren. Simple as that."**

**"Peak traffic might be better—"**

**"It isn't. Believe me."**

**Leaning over the railing of the top deck of the ferry, Goren contemplated his choices for the rest of the afternoon. They'd promised Eames and Barek to give them a break and take over the case revision in an afternoon shift, but that meant more shoulder-rubbing with Logan. Goren didn't think he could take much more.**

**"If you and Barek wanna take the afternoon off…" He straightened to face Logan. "… I might be able to… persuade Eames to keep workin' with me."**

**Logan squinted into the afternoon sun, his back against the wooden railing. "Tempting, but I doubt Eames'd go for it. I'm not exactly her favorite person, so I doubt she'd be throwing me any bones. And I've pissed her off even more by getting my cases dumped onto her."**

**Goren nodded. Logan was probably right. You didn't get on the wrong side of Eames and win favors from her.**

**"I'll do the work alone then. I could probably achieve more on my own—"**

**"Goren, seriously," Logan said, swinging conspiratorially toward him, "you need to get laid. I've got some phone numbers I can pass on—"**

**"Thanks, but no thanks." Goren gave up trying with the man and decided to keep his own counsel.**

**Scanning the other passengers on the deck dispassionately, he identified a gaggle of students heading into Manhattan, no doubt without parental permission, their satchels stuffed with disco clothes or worse. A pair of mothers with strollers had toddlers hanging from their hands and weariness dripping from their faces, but a group of Japanese tourists, with cameras poised at nothing but the concrete Manhattan skyline, were excitedly chattering. A couple of young women wearing thin-strapped short dresses were entertaining three youths who had half an ear on the girls' flirtatious babble and both eyes glued to their cleavage. The cabin was full of similar groups and Goren figured the middle and lower decks were the same. He turned away in disinterest. **

**A face caught his eyes and a flash of recognition bolted to his brain. **

**He snapped his head back and scanned the interior of the cabin, desperate to see again the long blonde hair, cow-brown eyes and taunting mouth of Nicole Wallace.**

**She was gone.**

**"Nicole…" he shouted to Logan, leaping forward. "It's Nicole!"**

**Goren lurched, his feet losing traction on the deck. He went down, a roar bursting in his head as heat seared his face. Thrown one way, he rolled into a hard, but giving surface. Screams rent the air mixed with confused shouts and smashing glass. Goren lifted his head and saw passengers, sliding, stumbling and falling over inert or struggling bodies and wood shards. **

**Of Logan, there was no sign. **

**Goren started to push himself to his feet, then was flung in the other direction, hitting cruelly against something hard and smooth. Flinging out an arm, he hit and grabbed the cool roundness of the boat's railing and hauled himself to his knees. He couldn't get his balance, using both hands to hang on and keep himself upright. The deck skewed and Goren lost sight of the shore to see only cloud-scudded sky. He fought to get his feet under him, but was hurled skyward, limbs flailing, freefalling. A second roar pounded his head, then cold dank water claimed him, the rush of water in his ears muting the thunder on the surface.**

**Goren sunk. He couldn't determine how deep, but he was cocooned in dark thick silence. His mouth tasted of bile, salt and oil, the water against his face foul. His eyes opened to grit-speckled brackish water and a lightening above him hinted at the surface. Goren struck out and upward. His left shoulder screamed at the effort and refused to obey. **_**Dislocated**_**, he guessed, probably from trying to hang onto the railing as his body projected from the deck. Allowing his left arm to trail uselessly, he used his legs and other arm to break to the surface. **

**Flinging the water from his face, Goren blinked at the mayhem that reigned on the waterline. The Ferry listed in the water, its hull ripped in two places above water level. Fire raged, feeding on human fuel and wooden boat fittings. Passengers jumped, dived and fell from the deck as others pushed them out of the way. Swimmers thrashed helplessly around him; a body bobbed against his outstretched arm and Goren recoiled as he saw that its head had been severed. **

**Another was face down in the water near him and Goren swam for it, his left arm still useless. Scrabbling to stay afloat and find life in the body, Goren detected a pulse at the throat. Pulling the head from the water, Goren held the male youth to him and searched desperately for a life buoy or floating surface of any kind. **

**A dinghy, fitted with an outboard, investigating the disaster hovered a hundred feet away. Goren shouted over the popping of exploding glass and roar of fire to get their attention. His mouth filled with water but someone saw him and pointed excitedly in his direction. His legs thrashed to get closer as the dinghy pushed debris aside to reach him.**

**"Take the boy!" he shouted as the boat nudged his shoulder. **

**Two pairs of hands reached for the youth and Goren flung out his good arm to grab the side of the boat. His chest heaving, he fought to get his breath and clear his mouth of the rank water.**

**"Is the police vessel here yet? Can you see it?" he gasped.**

**"Yeah. It's over there!"**

**Goren squinted up at the outstretched arm of his rescuer and followed his gesture behind and to the east of their position.**

**"Get their attention! Now!"**

**Goren bobbed against the boat as the man unsteadily stood and waved frantically. His rescuer looked to be in his mid-twenties, a woollen cap over straw-like pale hair and dressed in jeans and grubby gray pullover. He couldn't guess what he and his companion were doing on the water, but could only be glad they were there.**

**Waiting for the NYC Police to reach them, Goren took stock of the carnage around him. More boats were drawn to the scene and bodies and debris were bumped out of the way as the vessels searched for the living wounded. The ferry was in chaos, burning ferociously, the screams of trapped victims slicing through Goren's impatience for the police to reach him.**

**He looked in vain for Logan. If the man had been flung from the boat he should have landed somewhere near Goren. If he was still on the vessel, he could be one of the inert bodies smouldering on deck. Goren looked away and up at the approaching police.**

**"Detective Robert Goren, Major Case!" he shouted. "Get me on board! Hurry!"**

**oOo**

**Goren grunted as the officer on board planted his foot under Goren's armpit and wrenched on his left arm, pulling it back into place. Agony ripped through his nerves to his head, his vision swimming briefly, and then it was over. A vibrant throb replaced the gruelling pain he'd borne since hitting the water. Shaking his head to clear it, Goren thanked the officer and snapped out commands to those looking on.**

**"Which pier is closest? I want all bodies retrieved and victims herded to one location. This will **_**not**_** be a split effort."**

**"Staten Island is the closest," one officer supplied. "The ferry was barely off the pier."**

**Goren rounded on the officer in charge. "You know Frankie Silvera at the one-two-eight?"**

**"Yeah, sure, we know her."**

**"I want to talk to her. **_**Asap.**_**" He glared at the man until the officer nodded toward his subordinate who darted for the cabin of the boat. **

**"We gotta co-ordinate with the mainland, Detective. Staten Island doesn't have enough facilities—"**

**Goren thrust his face into the officer's. "Those explosions were no accident…" He peered at the man's badge beneath his life vest. "… Officer Sutton. The perp was on board that ferry and is either a floater or a casualty or swimming for shore by now. I'm also missing a detective. I want all bodies and survivors congregated in the one place and no one leaves the immediate area. There will be no corpse over the age of twenty transported, or same-aged person discharged, or onlooker released without my first sighting and okaying them. That order applies to the hospitals as well. Is that understood?"**

**The officer looked more confused than intimidated, but nodded anyway. "Understood."**

**Goren reached for his sodden discarded coat and pulled out his cell. The officer hadn't moved and Goren snapped at him. "What are you waitin' for? Get it done!"**

**Flipping open his phone, Goren was gratified to see his choice in a waterproof cell was paying off. He had coverage and he had contact. **

**He hit Eames' speed-dial.**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	7. Chapter 7

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

**oOo**

_**Previously on "Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**_

_**A face caught Bobby's eye and a flash of recognition bolted to his brain. **_

_**He snapped his head back and scanned the interior of the Staten Island Ferry cabin, desperate to see again the long blonde hair, cow-brown eyes and taunting mouth of Nicole Wallace.**_

_**She was gone.**_

_**"Nicole…" he shouted to Logan, leaping forward. "It's Nicole!"**_

_**Goren lurched, his feet losing traction on the deck. He went down, a roar bursting in his head as heat seared his face. Thrown one way, he rolled into a hard, but giving surface. Screams rent the air mixed with confused shouts and smashing glass. Goren lifted his head and saw passengers, sliding, stumbling and falling over inert or struggling bodies and wood shards. **_

_**Of Logan, there was no sign. **_

**oOo**

**The north shore of Staten Island was a disaster area, the pier and jetties strewn with shrouded bodies and hunched figures wrapped in blankets. Alex watched uniformed personnel representing the emergency services zigzagging among the survivors huddled in pairs or alone, stopping briefly to speak or attend to someone before moving on.**

**Using her cell to locate Bobby, Alex spied him moving jerkily between the roughly uniform rows of corpses, flipping up the top end of the shrouds and staring briefly before replacing the cloth. Threading her way along the shore toward him, Alex recognized the repressed urgency in his actions, the creased frustration on his face, and the agitated swing of his big body. Bobby Goren was on a mission.**

**He froze, bit down on his lip, flung back his head and bent to another body. Concern pricked at Alex' temples. **

**Bobby Goren was also in pain. A lot of it.**

**"Bobby…" **

**Reaching him, Alex knew better than to get in his way, stepping to the side ready to match footstep for footstep. He straightened, swung toward her and she saw the raw need in his eyes. Her arms lifted to reach out to him but he turned away, leaned down and grabbed the edge of the shroud at his feet. Alex' heart pitched then realized it was appropriate for him to rebuff her. Now was not the place, the flat stretch of shore open and within view of dozens of rescue workers.**

**The fledgling love that she fiercely guarded in public and nurtured in the intimate sheet-folds of her bed saturated the use of his name. "Bobby… You're hurt."**

**His hand arrested, Alex held her breath, but then Bobby flung back the canvas and pushed himself upright, wincing. "They have to be here somewhere, Eames. They gotta.."**

**"Bobby, you're—"**

**"I'm okay! I gotta find them—"**

**"Them? Who, Bobby? Logan was with you; you told me. He'll be fine." Alex swallowed, guilt hitting her stomach as she realized she was more concerned about Bobby's injuries than Logan's unknown fate. She tried to reassure herself as well as Bobby. "He's like a cat with nine lives. He'll be okay, but who—?"**

**Bobby stopped abruptly, swinging round to grab her shoulders. Just as quickly he jerked his hands in the air in a hands-off gesture.**

**"I saw her. On board the ferry. Nicole—"**

**"You talked to her?" Alex' breath caught, half in shock, half excitement.**

**His hands flailed briefly, then he turned his attention back to the dead.**

**The next body was that of a teenager, badly burned and male, judging by the baggy cargo pants and loose sleeveless tee charred almost to nothing. Youth snuffed out in agony. Alex swallowed, her despair palpable before she slammed her police objectivity firmly back in place.**

**"Saw her less than ten feet away," Bobby was saying. "Tried to get to her, but I was thrown by the first explosion."**

**"Has a medic seen you? On the phone you mentioned you were thrown clear, but your injuries… The impact—"**

**"I'm okay."**

**Alex bit down on her conviction he was far from okay. "You said on the phone it was no accident," she said, replacing the doubt in her voice with firm professionalism.**

**Bobby moved on waving a hand in the direction of the water. Alex looked quickly away from the smouldering wreck of the ferry, not wanting to be reminded of how close she had been to losing him. **

**"Explosions occurred mid-bow and mid-stern…" he said. "Too uniformly placed to be accidental. Nicole—"**

**"Nicole's not a bomber."**

**"It's an escalation. Are you surprised? Torturer. Poisoner. Shooter. It's not such a stretch." He came to the end of the row and moved onto the next, working his way down that one with the same painful purpose as before. **

**"If you survived, she may have too. Logan also."**

**Bobby nodded vigorously. "I was thrown clear. Logan was with me but I couldn't find him in the water. Nicole was in the cabin. She would have been trapped."**

**"If Nicole **_**was**_** the bomber, she's not suicidal." Alex was firm, sure of her assumption. "She wouldn't have put herself in a position she couldn't escape from."**

**Bobby's eyes left their sweep of the shoreline and came back to Alex. The frustration washed from them as they darkened to something more intimate; the look he gave her when they were alone. Really alone.**

**"She's here. Either with the dead or the living. And she instigated this. I was convinced she would go after you. But I was wrong. She either followed me from the mainland or saw me on the island." His hand lifted toward her. "You're safe now, Alex. It's not you she wants."**

**Alex' body quivered, waiting for his touch, but it never came. His fingers, inches from her face, clenched into a fist and was gone.**

**Disappointment made her voice sharp. "And just happened to have two bombs handy and managed to set them before the ferry reached Manhattan?" She hated to undermine him, but she didn't quite believe Nicole was stalking Bobby.**

**Bobby checked, bent at the waist, his hand on the shroud of the corpse below him. He straightened slowly, chin tucked into his chest. "I underestimated Nicole before. I won't do it again." He looked around, his gaze spanning nearly three-sixty before fixing back on Alex, his brow furrowed. "Where's Barek? I would have thought—"**

**"She went home before you called. I tried her on her cell and at home, but only got her message bank."**

**"She didn't say—?"**

**"Only that she was calling it a day." Scanning past him at the sprawl of Staten Island, Alex' eyes narrowed. "Has it occurred to you that while you're looking at the dead, Nicole could be one of the injured, or worse, have been sound enough to slip away?"**

**"The first thing I did… was seal the shore. The second was put Silvera, a detective from the one-two-eight, in charge of the wounded. If she's here, she's caught in a net. **_**My**_** net." **

**His eyes bored into hers. "Like I said, I won't underestimate Nicole again."**

**oOo**

**The heat blanketed him from all sides, suffocating in its intensity. Logan tensed his neck, bunching muscles for some relief from the oppressive weight above and around him. **

**There was nowhere to go.**

**No relief from the claustrophobic pressure of his grave. **

**His shoulders straining to break free, Logan grunted at the pain that shot to his head. His right arm suffused with blinding heat that rocked him and made him retch. The resulting throb reminded him of the time he'd had that arm broken in a fight as a youth. The fight had been over a girl and she hadn't been worth the pain, the ensuing inconvenience, and worse, the puncture to his pride for being the loser. **

**Testing his left arm, Logan's instinctive panic eased at the cooperation of the other limb, gaining some give in his heated, soft confine. He could move his hand slightly, tentatively exploring the wall of his cage. **

**Horror clawed at his gut as his fingers touched soft wet flesh, lifeless but still warm. Realization crowded in. It was bodies that pressed in on him; unshifting, depriving him of movement and fresh air.**

**His head cleared, processing the cloying stench of burning flesh turning his already protesting stomach. With clarity, came sound. Muffled screams pounded from above and around, made more terrifying by his inability to see anything but darkness and pinpoints of terror in front of his eyes. The smell of faeces filled his nostrils and he prayed to a God he never revered enough, that it wasn't his. Dead or alive, he never wanted to suffer that ignominy. **

**Something shifted, the weight easing slightly as his prison skewed. Moans increased and combined with a clamor of shouts. Heated air rushed onto Logan's face and light stabbed into his eyes.**

**He heard a call of "We've got a live one!" before pain tore at his arm. A grip at his shoulders slipped then held as he was dragged from his human grave, the pain excruciating and relentless. A silver haze exploded behind his eyes; he cursed aloud hearing nothing but the roar in his head. His body was being ripped apart, yanked from its stifling refuge to encounter a roaring, burning reality that dipped and plunged into chaos.**

**"Get him out of there!" A feminine voice he recognized despite the waves of agony wracking his body.**

**"Sil…vera? Is…zat you? Christ Al— Go easy, will ya?!" he gargled back. "My arm—!"**

**"Out of my way! Logan!" Her shout was in his ear, reassuring in its ferocity and urgency. "Get over it. We gotta get you out. This boat's goin' up fast. Bates! Give me a hand!"**

**"Dohn…don'tcha mean 'down'?" Logan mumbled, his brain grasping at banalities to escape the horror of reality. Then they yanked again at his broken body and he consigned them all to hell with him.**

**"Get the fu—!" Cymbals of pain crashed in his head. Logan bit down on his tongue, but couldn't stop the shroud of black pressing in and gleefully reclaiming consciousness.**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	8. Chapter 8

**"****Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

**oOo**

**Chapter Eight**

**Shuffling her way past thick and bony knees, ****Carolyn stumbled in the dark confines of the theater row, almost falling into the ample lap of a large woman molded into the seat with no inches to spare. Apologizing profusely, Carolyn cursed Bree Archer's melodramatic choice of meeting place. The woman's insistence they meet here was causing her to second-guess her decision to help the woman, ignoring Mike's warning not to get involved in Bobby's hunt for Nicole Wallace. **

**Coffee with Alex ****this afternoon had proved difficult with Carolyn not wanting to get into explanations about her relationship with Mike, despite Alex' probing for more information. Carolyn was surprised by, and thus wary of, the other detective's interest in their affair and her feelings for her partner were too new to not be held close and cherished before airing to a less tolerant audience.**

**She felt guilty for leaving Alex with the bulk of the files to check over, but had feigned a headache and non-existent symptoms to get out to meet Archer. Knowing Mike and Bobby were beating a path on Staten Island gave her the assurance that her meeting**** would go undetected until she made up her own mind on the course she would take, if any.**

**Making herself comfortable in**** one of the middle seats in the last row, she turned off her cell phone in deference to theater policy and peered into the darkness for a sign of the tall Australian. She vowed she would pull out of the scheme if Archer couldn't convince her Wallace would take the bait. **

**Not knowing what to expect, ****Carolyn settled in to watch the movie already being screened, noting actors she recognized but a plot line in which she had no interest. Her mind soon wandered to Mike and how she felt about him; more to the point, how he made her feel. Her memory still clung to the wholly satisfying romp last night, amazed at, and thrilled by, his stamina and creativity. Carolyn squirmed in her seat, a satisfied smile curving…**

**"**_**Detective Barek**_**—"**

**The soft voice didn't so much startle Carolyn as increase her misgivings about the woman. Bree Archer's sense of melodrama extended to exaggerated whispers in the dark.**

**"Yes…"**

**"I'm glad you came—"**

**"What have you got for me?" Carolyn asked, wanting to get this over with. "I'm not convinced this is a good idea, and meeting in a theater is a bit over-the-top, don't you think?"**

**The**** Australian ignored her, handing over a file bundle that felt to be about an inch thick. "This is everything. I paid off my current lawyer and insisted I take the paperwork. Perhaps—"**

**"I'll get it checked over. We might find something in the file that will lead us to Nicole."**

**"I hope so****. If I can help—"**

**"You've done more than enough." Carolyn started to rise, eager to be gone, but Archer's hand on her arm stopped her.**

**"I'm adamant about one thing, Detective. The minute you arrest her, I want to be informed. I insist on it." **

**Carolyn tensed at the force and sibilance of ****the other woman's statement. "You'll be informed, Ms Archer, but you cannot interfere. Police matters—"**

**"I think you'll find my connections transcend the NYPD, Detective."**

**Carolyn lowered herself back into the seat, peering at Archer in the dark. "I'm not sure I—"**

**"I just want to know that my family has no more reason to look over their shoulders for the ****specter of Nicole."**

**Carolyn couldn't see Archer's expression, but the timbre of her voice, even whispered, was singular and driven. Carolyn tensed, an inner sense raising a flag she cou****ldn't ignore. **

**She needed to talk to Mike.**

**oOo**

**A hushed**** pall settled over the disaster area of Staten Island as the extent of the dead was realized. The ferry was capable of carrying in excess of six thousand people and the explosions occurred during one of the afternoon peak periods. Alex wasn't yet privy to the statistics but if human bodies were cars, the temporary morgue that was set up on the west shore looked like the parking lot of a popular super-sized mall.**

**As Bobby continued with his grisly task, Alex watched him closely, looking for any signs that he was overdoing it or ignoring his own condition. When Bobby's face twisted with deep despair at the uncovering of a child, Alex stepped closer and discretely touched his wrist in empathy. She longed to do more, but while she had forgiven him for trying to overprotect her, she respected his decision to maintain a professional façade for the public while they were on the job.**

**His cell rang, and weariness mad****e him fumble at the pocket of his still damp trousers to answer it.**

**"****Goren."**

**While he listened, ****he absently rolled his shoulder. Besides the obvious painful limping, Alex remembered noticing earlier that Bobby favored his left shoulder. **

**His mouth parted and his shoulders sagged with ****relief. "Thanks, Detective. I appreciate it. I'm not finished here, but when I do, I'll join you." He snapped his phone shut and stowed it, his gaze on Alex lightening.**

**"****They've found Logan," he said. "Suspected concussion, internal bruising and a broken arm. They're taking him to the hospital." **

**Alex smiled, ****glad for the other detective and hoping Bobby would now cease his tragic search of bodies. "Who're we to meet?"**

**His look of confusion told her he'd already moved on from Logan, that emergency terminated satisfactorily.**

**"****The caller… the Detective," Alex prompted. "Anyone I know?"**

**Bobby shrugged. "Frankie Silvera. Logan's partner while he was at the one-two-eight."**

**"****He'll be glad Logan's okay."**

**"****She." Bobby continued with his body check and Alex felt her patience slip. She stood in his way, an outstretched arm preventing his next investigation.**

**"Bobby…"**

**He shuddered under her touch****, refusing to look at her.**

**"This is not—" Sighing heavily, he finally lifted his eyes. He extended a hand; a feather-light touch to her cheek. "I'm nursing a dislocated shoulder that's back in place but still hurts like hell," he said, anticipating her demand. "That's all, Alex."**

**"You were limping—"**

**"I banged my knee somehow. It wasn't worrying me until I started all this bending down. I'm not as young as I—"**

**"That's c****rap!" Tears gathered in Alex' eyes. Relief knowing Logan was alive combined with the realization of the near miss of losing Bobby was too much for her. Biting her lip, she gazed at him and let them flow, past caring about being in public.**

**"Hold me, Bobby. Please."**

**oOo**

**Carolyn ****was aware that Bree Archer followed her out of the theater and stood beside her waiting expectantly. A wayward breeze whipped her red hair into her face, hiding her expression. Barek reactivated her cell and stepped away, but the woman moved with her.**

**"Thank you for your time, Ms Archer," she said by way of dismissal, "I'll be in touch." Her phone vibrated in her hand, indicating she had a stored message. Looking down, she saw several roll up on the display, all from Alex Eames. Thumbing through them, they showed identical orders**_**. Call me.**_

**Connecting via her speed dial, Carolyn didn't have long to wait for Alex to answer.**

**"Where are you?" Alex snapped in her ear, and Carolyn blinked, diverted from being annoyed that Archer hadn't moved off.**

**"I…uh…downtown—"**

**"Get over to Staten Island, north shore, then call me again for my location. **_**Pronto!**_**"**

**Alex cut the connection and Carolyn snapped round looking for a taxi, the urgency in Alex' voice outweighed the lack of information and peremptory command. Her phone call to Mike would have to wait.**

**"Detective!" Archer's voice was sharp. "What's wrong?"**

**"I'm sorry, Ms Archer, I have to go." She waved madly at an oncoming taxi and flashed her badge for good measure. "Thank you for meeting—"**

**"What is it? Is it something to do with Nicole? Is that why you're trying to get rid of me?"**

**Carolyn looked at her, incredulous****. "The world doesn't revolve around Nicole Wallace, does it? I got an urgent call from a colleague. That's all. Now, if you'll excuse me—"**

**She ****yanked open the back door of a taxi as it pulled into the curb. "Staten Island! This is a police matter." Archer slipped into the front seat before she could stop her. "Ms Archer!"**

**"I'm just sharing the taxi, Detective. ****Any idea how much hard yakka it is to catch one at this time of day? And I don't have a badge to show."**

**Carolyn wanted to argue, having the professional right ****to evict the woman from the taxi, but her common decency acceded taxis were gold during peak hour.**

**"It'll cost you double the fare just to get back—"**

**"Actually, it's on my way. Don't you worry about me."**

**"You going ****to the disaster, Detective?" the cabbie turned around to ask. "I can only get you as far as the Brooklyn end of the bridge."**

**"Disaster?"**

**"Yep. You don't know? I heard it on the radio. Someone blew the Staten Island Ferry up. Go figure."**

**oOo**

**"You get to that ambulance or I'll—"**

**Logan stared down his diminutive ex-partner but kept his distance as well. ****The Staten Island pier was wide enough that he could dodge her if she came for him and he knew she couldn't really take him down — his right arm was in a temporary sling, but he was as good with his left. The problem was he might get hurt while she tried. **

_**Hell, **_**he thought, what could hurt that wasn't already?**

**"Silvera— Frankie…" he appealed, but sh****e started to advance toward him. A police boat nosed the pylon beneath them, and Logan tried to catch the mooring rope they threw up. He missed, and Silvera had to retrieve it.**

**"Less than half an hour ago, you were as good as dead!" She stabbed ****one hand at him, while she wound the rope around the pylon with the other. "Now you want to play the hero—"**

**"You guys are short-handed as it is****," he said, hating the whine in his voice, but fearing being consigned to a hospital bed more. "And the medics… they're needed for the real wounded. I can do something here—" **

**Logan stumbled out of the way of two uniformed officers as they swung up off the berthed police vessel with a large black plastic bag hefted between the two of them. **

**Silvera**** ignored them, diving to catch Logan before he fell. "Yeah, you can die here and how'm I gonna break the news to Carolyn what's-her-name?" she yelled. "She's probably bigger than me."**

**"Not much—" Logan groaned, shaking his head clear and forcing his knees to stay straight, trying not to lean on Silvera but failing.**

**"**_**Shit! **_**You should see yourself, Mike. You're a mess. At least, sit down." **

**He looked round, dazed and confused. "Yeah? Where?"**

**"Shit! Officer!" Silvera shouted to a diver still in a wet suit and checking his equipment on the police boat. "You got anything on there I can sit my partner on?"**

**"Ex-partner," Logan mumbled.**

**"Shuddup."**

**"How 'bout a porta-cot?" the diver shouted back.**

**"Fine. Anything."**

**"I am **_**not—!**_**" Logan began in horror.**

**"Detective Silvera…" One of the uniforms ****holding onto the plastic bag stepped closer to gain her attention.**

**"Yeah, McIntyre, what've you got?"**

**He waved a hand toward his 'catch'. ****"Personal effects. No way of knowing who they belong to, alive or dead, 'cos they were scattered over what's left of the deck. Some of them were floating in the water—"**

**"Fine. Bag 'em. And no taking shortcuts. If there's I.D. in or on anything, I want **_**you**_** to tag 'em, not rely on a clerk to get it wrong. Got me?"**

**"Yes, ma'am."**

**"Now, Logan—"**

**"I'm not getting on that thing," he said, eyeing the cot the diver had pushed up onto the pier. "You're wasting our time—"**

**"Excuse me, Detectives," McIntyre interrupted. "I've already started a list of names of passengers as per recovered I.D.s from the last bag. You want me to add to that one or start a new one?"**

**"What?" **

**McIntyre**** thrust a clipboard into Silvera's face and she took it without thinking. The look that passed over her face was comical in its incredulity of the uniform's inability to make the minor decisions and Logan couldn't prevent a grin despite his own aggravation. **

**Looking down, Silvera peered at the names as if trying to find intelligence there that was lacking in her subordinate.**

**"Aitchens, Edward…Anderson, Trey…Archer, Bree… Atkinson, Pat—" she read absently then stopped abruptly and looked up at McIntyre. "You've alphabetized these? You trying to impress or brown-nose, McIntyre? Which is it?"**

**McIntyre**** looked affronted. "It's called, 'no taking shortcuts', Detective. You just said—"**

**"Wait!" Logan ripped the clipboard out of her hands, winced, gave himself a second to recover and scanned the list. **_**Archer, Bree. **_**He hadn't misheard. "Hell! That's the woman—"**

**"You've been looking for?" Silvera finished. "That's one of her aliases?"**

**"No, this isn't Wallace, but it's someone connected." He lifted his gaze from the list and zeroed in on Silvera. "Where'd you say Goren was?"**

**"He wanted to check the temporary morgue set out on the ****north shore. As far as I know, he's still there—"**

**Logan dragged out his cell and dialed Goren's number. "He'll want to know this." He turned on McIntyre, biting his lip against the pain that small movement generated. "I want to see all of the items listed beside Bree Archer's name. Whatever you've got, find it. Now!"**

**"Mike…" Silvera stepped up to him. "The ambulance—****"**

**"I'm not going."**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	9. Chapter 9

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

**oOo**

_**Previously on "Cowboys, Pair of Kings"…**_

_**"Wait!" Logan ripped the clipboard out of Silvera's hands, winced, gave himself a second to recover and scanned the list. Archer, Bree. He hadn't misheard. "Hell! That's the woman—"**_

_**"You've been looking for?" Silvera finished. "That's one of her aliases?"**_

_**"No, this isn't Wallace, but it's someone connected." He lifted his gaze from the list and zeroed in on Frankie. "Where'd you say Goren was?"**_

_**"He wanted to check the temporary morgue set out on the north shore. As far as I know, he's still there—"**_

_**Logan dragged out his cell and dialed Goren's number. "He'll want to know this." He jabbed a finger at McIntyre, biting his lip against the pain. "I want to see all of the items listed beside Bree Archer's name. Whatever you've got, find it. Now!"**_

_**"Mike…" Silvera stepped up to him. "The ambulance—"**_

_**"I'm not going."**_

**oOo**

**Chapter Nine**

_**Earlier…**_

**Sighing into Bobby's embrace, Alex shut out the biting breeze that carried acrid traces of smoke and burning oil ****to them, mingled with the shouts of discovery and cries of despair. Her cheek was pressed into his chest and she inhaled his heat into her lungs, feeling light-headed by his closeness and the strength of his arms around her. Her tears dried against his shirt and she felt warmed by this opportunity to seize the moment, daring the consequences.**

**"Alex, if—"**

**"I don't care if anyone sees us. What is that to the number of lives lost today?"**

**She felt his chin nod against the top of her head and he shifted to encompass her more fully. Alex was cocooned in his big body and she had never felt more safe ****nor loved. Bobby rarely said the words, but Alex knew he loved her in his own way.**

**The wet thud of a body being hoisted onto the mud startled Bobby out of their embrace and he spun around to watch a dinghy bring another victim to shore. Alex shrunk back into the sudden cold and went back to examining the shrouds for Nicole.**

**Her**** worry for Bobby deepened with every passing minute. She could see the waste of human life affecting him, depressing him. **

**Hurting him.**

**They were working in tandem now, each taking every second shroud, speeding up the process and halving Bobby's load. With each body, Alex was ****also hit with the tragedy of it; each child, pregnant woman, elderly man as well as the robust, chipping at the professional shield she tried to maintain.**

**And still more arrived. Police boats dropped bodies on the shore for the M.E. assistants to collect and emergency personnel delivered others on stretchers. Alex tried to ignore the mounting number, but Bobby stopped to watch each delivery**** with sharp attention.**

**She**** could hear Bobby talking to himself, but the breeze carried away his words and she gave up asking him to repeat himself, knowing what he was doing — blaming himself for this horrific waste of life, convinced this was an act of Wallace against him.**

**Unable to stand it any longer, she stood in his way, her hands on his chest, baring her love and compassion and not caring if it showed. He stopped, looking down at her with pain darkening his eyes****, his lips trembling. Her hands stole up his chest to tenderly cup his face, barely able to breathe as her eyes lingered on his mouth.**

**She leaned into him. ****"Bobby, you've got to stop this—"**

**His phone interrupted, dousing her impulse, and her hands slid away, cold and empty.**

**Bobby answered the call, his brow deepening into a frown. "What the—? Silvera said they were taking you— Yeah, okay, we'll be right there."**

**He snapped the cell shut and strode off, leaving Alex standing with her mouth open. "Bobby!" she shouted, catching up.**

**"That was Logan! He wants me… us… up on the pier!"**

**"You said they shipped him off to hospital—" she called, trotting after him.**

**"Yeah, well he's a stubborn ass at the best of times!"**

**"Like someone else I know," Alex mumbled.**

**oOo**

**Conscious of Bree Archer in the taxi with her, Carolyn ****dialed Mike's cell number and waited for him to pick up. Chewing her lip, worry began to prick at her nerves while she waited, then panic slivered through her blood as it went to voice mail. He was either using it or his search for Nicole necessitated he turn it off. She didn't like the implications behind that theory. Archer hadn't attempted to make conversation during the trip through Brooklyn and while Carolyn was grateful, it gave her more opportunity to worry.**

**She**** felt the taxi slow and noticed the traffic snarl in front of her. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was head of them, but uniformed police were detouring traffic away from it. Their taxi began to veer away with the tide.**

**"Stop!" she ordered the driver. Pulling out her wallet, she thrust some bills over the seat toward him. Without explanation to Archer, Carolyn slipped out of the taxi and strode toward the traffic cop firmly ordering the taxi away.**

**Flashing her badge, she snapped out the question. "Barek, Major Case. What's going on?"**

**The cop frowned, darting a look at her before continuing to direct the traffic. ****"We've cordoned off this end of Staten Island as ordered, Detective. Road blocks are in place and the perimeter has been set up with regular checkpoints. No one without authority can get on or off the island."**

**"Why?"**

**"You don't know?" He froze, his hands faltering in their purpose, then jabbed a finger at a motorist for slowing to a stop.**

**"I'm asking you, Officer…" Carolyn peered at his badge. "…Chavez."**

**"Ferry disaster. I thought that's why you're here."**

**"It is now. How do I get across?"**

**He jerked his head behind him. ****"We've got motorcycles ferrying personnel across."**

**"Bikes?" **** Barek's voice rose.**

**"Less chance of someone hiding in a trunk or under a seat on the return journey. If you're game." His look was condescending.**

**Carolyn schooled her face not to show her shock or ignorance. **_**What was going on?**_** "I'm game. Where do I mount?"**

**Chavez**** motioned her over to a stationary cycle and signaled for a bike cop to join them. "Where do you need to be? There's several stations. The temporary morgue, the wounded, and where the lucky ones are being interned—"**

**"Interned? Why?"**

**"One of your detectives has sealed the island. He believes the bomber was on the ferry and is still on the island somewhere—"**

**"Who?! Which detective?" Carolyn grasped his arm as he turned away to wave on a car with a rubber-neck at the wheel.**

**Chavez screwed his face up, trying to recall the name. "Gordon?"**

**"Goren?"**

**"Could be. Silvera should be in charge. It's her turf over there, but Goren is throwing his weight—"**

**Barek left him mid-sentence, striding toward the cycle and beckoning the rider to follow her. She wasn't wasting any more time with ****Chavez; Alex would tell her all she needed to know. Hopping onto the pillion seat before the bike cop, Carolyn flipped open her cell phone and was dialing Eames' number, leaving her driver to slip on as best he could.**

**Alex answered on the second ring.**

**"Barek here****. Where are you?"**

**"We're in the Saint George Terminal."**

**"We?"**

**"Bobby and Mike are here with me, and I might as well prepare you. They were on the Ferry and both—"**

**"**_**God! Mike! **_**How is he?"**

**"They're **_**both**_** okay. You won't like what you see but Mike's walking and talking, so I guess that says something—"**

**"**_**Alex!**_**"**

**"He's **_**okay**_**, Carolyn. I think. Just **_**looks**_** worse for wear."**

**Carolyn cut the connection and thumped the back of the officer in front of her. "Saint George Terminal," she yelled above the chang of the motorcycle, stowing her phone, "and step on it!"**

**oOo**

**Logan allowed Silvera to help**** him back up the pier into the terminal and find him a seat. Explaining the new development of Bree Archer's personal effects being found in the water and parrying Goren's demands had strangely exhausted him. **

**He lowered himself painfully o****nto a bench seat and realized he was shivering, despite being one of the fortunate few who stayed dry on the ferry deck and lived to talk about. **

**"Frankie…"**

**"Be back in a minute," she said before walking off.**

**The shudders growing worse, Logan watched police and other emergency services move around him and past him, their agendas all hinged on containing the disaster in their own way. There was no sign of Goren or Eames and he hadn't seen them leave. He felt useless and Silvera hovering over him like a mother hen wasn't making him feel better.**

**She was back, thrusting a cup of steaming coffee into his hand. "Where'd you get that?" he asked in amazement. Coffee was gold during states of emergency.**

**"Someone saw fit to restock the vending machines and bypass the coin requirement. It's good to see everyone pulling together." She stood watching him, hands on her hips, her face creased with concern. "You can be grateful for it."**

**"I am," he said, sipping at the black liquid to feel the habitual kick of adrenalin rejuvenate him. "Where's Goren?" His shivers eased a little, but his voice was shaky.**

**"Eames answered a call and ****I sent Goren to chase up McIntyre's evidence bags. I think they both went. I elected to look after you." Silvera sat beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. "You're trembling. Logan, God help me, if you don't—"**

**"I'm not getting in an ambulance." He eased his injured arm away from her, but didn't rebuff the warmth she was providing. "Goren will be back, and I wanna wait for what McIntyre has got." He took another gulp of coffee as another tremor racked his body. "**_**Geezus, **_**I feel as weak as a—"**

**"**_**Mike!**_**" **

**Logan spun round and would have fallen off the seat if Silvera hadn't been hanging onto him. The world swam in front of his eyes, retreating to spotlight the vision of Carolyn running toward him in slow motion. Her hair streamed behind her, her face stretched with shock.**

**Logan tried to stand, not ****sure if it was her or his addled imagination, but Silvera wrestled him back. **

**"Take it easy, Logan!" she cautioned.**

**He fell across the bench, dragging Frankie down with him, pressing against his fractured arm.**

**"**_**Fuck! **_**You're killin' me!"**

**"Stop fighting me!**** You're gonna kill yourself."**

**"****Mike…"**

**There were two women on him and Logan figured if he were whole and hearty, he'd be enjoying this. As it was…**

**"I don't know who to arrest for assault." Carolyn's voice was sharp and anxious in his ear. "You or this woman—"**

**Logan struggled to sit up, arching his back in pain. "Barek?"**

**"None other." She sat beside him, her hands reaching for him.**

**He squinted at her, seeing the vestiges of worry hanging there. "Silvera, meet Barek…"**

**Carolyn nodded toward Frankie, but Logan saw her chewing her lip, a sure sign she had plenty to say**** and was trying to hold it back. **

**"**_**Detective**_** Barek, I'm Mike's partner."**

**"Silvera," Frankie returned. "I'm his ex."**

**Carolyn's brow shot up and Logan hastily added, "Partner. She means, partner. We worked together that is. On cases.**** On…on the isl—" He was babbling, but he couldn't help it. He just wanted to lie down and go to sleep.**

**"Why isn't he in hospital?" Carolyn snapped. "What were his injuries?" Logan felt her hands run over him and he grinned drunkenly. "Lower, Barek, lower….ahhh, that's the spot. Nice."**

**"Suspected concussion," Silvera was saying, "bruising, you can see the arm… and I tried to get him to hospital. Do you think I didn't?"**

**"I don't care how you do it, Silvera, but get some medics and a stretcher to us now. Go!"**

**Frankie**** hurried off and Logan was impressed. An order like that from him would have earned a tongue-lashing from Silvera.**

**"I'm not go****—" His chin was seized and Barek's eyes pierced through the haze in front of his.**

**"You stay with me, you stubborn—**** You're not getting out of this relationship like this!"**

**"I'm not—" He tried to tell her he wasn't getting in an ambulance, but it became too much effort. She dropped his chin and he fell forward into her arms. They felt warm and comforting and seemed to be dragging him back from somewhere...**

**Movement, shuffling, urgent commands eddied and broke around him. Hands grabbed at him, but he clung to Barek, not wanting to leave her warmth. Shoving at the unwelcome and hurtful grips, he mumbled curses and burrowed into the warm body that felt and smelt of Carolyn.**

**"Get him on that stretcher—"**

**"He's fighting me—"**

**"I hope this Carolyn he's moving in with can handle—"**

**"I've got to go with him—"**

**"You're needed here, Detective—"**

**"I want—" Logan began, but a black curtain plummeted toward him, thumping heavily into his last thought.**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	10. Chapter 10

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

_**Author Apology: I've just realized that my WORD program has been set in Australian English dictionary (as apposed to US English) for the last four or five chapters and so spelling inconsistencies w**__**ould have crept into my writing – 'ou's instead of 'o's; double 'l' instead of single 'l'; 're's instead of 'er's … that sort of thing. Without WORD bringing these inconsistencies to my notice, I wouldn't have noticed.**_

_**Thanks gorengal and I-am-LMR for reminding me about the 'ring' versus 'call'. I knew this. Someone brought it to my notice a long time ago, and I sometimes remember to pull myself up about it, but that one slipped through**__**. Nicole and Bree can 'ring' someone… Barek has to 'call' them. Got it:-D**_

_**And upon rereading my last chapters in order to get my head around where I'm at, I've made a vow never to use 'jab a finger at' ever again. If I do, roast me! LOL.**_

**oOo**

**Chapter Ten**

**The police vessel nudged the pylon ****beside him, the slap of the water against the dock snapping Goren alert. He was impatient for it berth, needing to see with his own eyes the evidence he couldn't quite believe. Convinced that the ferry explosion had been aimed at him, it now seemed that Bree Archer was the target. He was also disturbed by Nicole's lack of motive. Coming after **_**him**_** made more sense than targeting Archer. Having Archer out of the way would hardly forward Nicole's legal claim on an estate in Australia. He couldn't see how, as mother of the deceased's dead child, Nicole had any legal rights of interest.**

**"****McIntyre?" he asked the compact, sprightly officer who scrambled out of the boat. Despite the nature of his work, sifting through the debris for the living and dead victims of the ferry disaster, McIntyre's uniform looked crisp and clean.**

**"Yes?" **

**Goren produced his badge and held o****ut his hand for the bag in the bottom of the boat. "Silvera authorized you to hand the evidence bags over."**

**"Only ****those relevant to a Bree Archer."**

**"That's all I need."**

**Goren donned ****latex gloves before opening one of the small sealed bags supplied by McIntyre. He carefully extracted the contents, moving his shoulder so Eames could observe, barely feeling the accompanying twinge of pain through the excitement of discovery. **

**The ****wet slim leather wallet contained bills totaling nearly two hundred dollars, several credit cards, and two driver's licenses, both international and U.S. Goren rubbed at the plastic pocket shielding one license and squinted at the photo. It wasn't a good one, they rarely are, but it wasn't the narrow visage of the red-head they had met yesterday. It was unmistakably a blonde with an overbite. **

**A mixture of revulsion and e****xcitement rippled through Goren; the first, his gut reaction to seeing Nicole or hearing her name; the second, confirmation that she was here somewhere, alive or dead, close enough to apprehend. **

**Water-damaged**** receipts in the wallet were illegible and there was little else of interest, other than Bree Archer's green card, no doubt a forgery as well. The other bag held a very new-looking NYPD I.D. nameplate denoting Bree Archer an employee at the one-nine. This time the photo was better, even attractive, but still that of Nicole Wallace.**

**"It's her," he said, ****"it's Nicole."**

**oOo**

**Staring at ****the departing ambulance carrying Mike and three other injured to the hospital, Carolyn forced her feet not to follow it. Her chest was tight with worry for Mike and her fists balled with outrage that she couldn't be with him. She understood that he was with the professionals best trained to help him and that her expertise was needed here, but that didn't make the wrench more bearable as his hand slipped out of hers while one medic held him down on the gurney and the other eased Carolyn out of the crowded ambulance.**

**Her only comfort was something Silvera had said – a snatch of frustrated utterance while Mike was fighting them.**

_**"I hope this Carolyn he's moving in with can handle him…"**_

**Had Mike been talking to his ex-partner, seeking advice? ****Maybe even made his decision and shared it with an old friend and Silvera hadn't made the connection that **_**she**_** was the 'Carolyn'. **

**Making**** her way back to the ferry terminal and the waiting Silvera was like a compass fighting against north. Carolyn's heart was in that ambulance and it was being torn from her body. Sighting Goren and Eames with Silvera helped her bury her concern and plaster professionalism back in place. **

**A**** raised eyebrow from Bobby prompted Carolyn to explain her absence. "They took Mike to the hospital. I…I wanted to go with him," she admitted, her eyes flicking between Alex and Bobby. "He looked bad. Out of it." She took a breath, guilt twisting at her insides. "I'm sorry, Bobby. I never asked how **_**you**_** were—"**

**He waved a dismissive hand. "I was thrown clear. Took a tumble in the water…"**

**"You weren't hurt?"**

**"A dislocated shoulder. Somehow I managed to go in the water… without breaking anything. Silvera tried to get Logan into an ambulance." His lips pressed into a small smile. "Her persuasion wasn't as effective as yours. You have a way with him that others…can't match."**

**Carolyn's smile was brief****. "He wasn't as lucky as you. I was told he was caught on deck, buried alive even." She set her jaw against the quiver in her voice and tilted her head at Bobby. "You have a suspect?"**

**"I saw Nicole before the explosion, ****and they've recovered I.D. for Bree Archer with Nicole's picture on it."**

**"Archer!" Carolyn jolted with the realization that she had given the woman no more thought. "I was with her!" She ****gasped when Bobby's hand closed over her upper arm with bruising force.**

**"**_**Where**_**?!"**

**"I left her on the other side of the bridge. We were in a taxi— I don't know…if she stayed in the taxi or got out—"**

**"I want her!****" Bobby's eyes were intent and searching, his big body in her personal space, intimidating. Carolyn experienced a twinge of compassion for his suspects during interrogations. **

**"****For Nicole to have access to her I.D.," he said, his excitement bubbling over, "Archer has to be involved somehow."**

**"You want her?" Carolyn looked him up and down doubtfully, picturing him on the back of a motorcycle. "You up for a bike ride?"**

**oOo**

**Bobby**** didn't need to swing a leg over the back of a bike, though Alex would have liked to have seen it. **

**After ****chuckling at her own joke, Carolyn called Archer on her cell phone. Alex wasn't surprised when it didn't answer. If both she and Wallace were on or near Staten Island, it was too big a coincidence for it not to be orchestrated. It was also too much to expect Bree to answer phone calls from NYPD Detectives.**

**C****onvinced Nicole was in the vicinity, Bobby split them up, setting goals of maintaining vigilance at each of the emergency stations. Bobby went back to the temporary morgue, after cautioning Silvera to preserve the police net she had set up to prevent departures from the perimeter, sending Carolyn to chase down the last known whereabouts of a woman in a taxi detoured from the V-Narrows bridge and directing Alex to the medical unit to search the wounded. **

**Alex**** figured no one had an easy job of it, but searching the injured huddled under makeshift tents erected a few hundred yards away from the temporary morgue, was just as heart-wrenching as scouring the dead.**

**In the fourth tent, a**** doctor halted Alex as she spoke briefly to an injured woman sitting on the ground with a bloodied bandage around her leg and a toddler clutched fiercely in her arms. **

**"Any idea as to why yet, Detective?" he asked wearily, his height forcing him to stoop as he joined her.**

**Alex straightened, her head nearly touching the roof of the sagging tent. The dank canvas walls kept out the distressing sight of the burning ferry, but couldn't staunch the creep of the early evening cold.**

**"I'm sorry, Doctor," she said, eyeing the harassed medic who looked too young to be out of University.**

**"An attack of this magnitude **_**has**_** be terrorist-related," he insisted. "What is being done?"**

**"We don't know anything yet, but every step is being taken–"**

**"To what? Protect the living? Contain the situation? What can you possibly do to help us **_**after**_** the event?"**

**Alex bit down on her retaliation, used to this criticism from the public. ****"We can investigate any lead, any information from those that survived–"**

**"Good luck," he griped. "These people know nothing except that they were traveling on a ferry one minute and their world was turned upside down the next. Most of these people are too shell-shocked to remember anything."**

**Looking around the tent at the bent heads or baleful stares of the survivors, Alex had to agree. ****"Is there anyone… lucid enough… composed enough to talk to me? Someone who is less shell-shocked than the rest."**

**"Well… there was a Doctor on board… off-duty… He was on the lower deck of the ferry and went into the water." The Doctor looked around vaguely. "He's around here somewhere, helping us out. And… a nurse… she was with him, but she recently left in one of the ambulances…"**

**Alex' chin tipped. "She wasn't injured?"**

**"Ah… no. Didn't appear to be, anyway. But she was most helpful. Really pulled her weight while she was here."**

**"And now she's gone." Alex stared at him with impatience. "Are you aware that able-bodied ferry passengers are **_**not**_** allowed to leave the perimeter?"**

**"She was a nurse. She went with the injured–"**

**"Please describe this… nurse."**

**The Doctor shrugged. "Short, petite, blonde. A looker."**

**Alex pulled out her cell and thumbed through her picture files. "Which hospital was the ambulance routed to?"**

**"University Hospital, North. They're still able to take the bad cases."**

**Alex**** stopped at a photo of Nicole and showed him her cell.**

**"Ah, yes. That's her. I was glad of her help–"**

**Alex didn't hear the rest. She strode out of the tent back toward St George Terminal, dialing her phone as she went. When it connected, she didn't bother with pleasantries.**

**"Bobby? We've got her."**

**oOo**

**Overhead lights flashed in staccato unison above him ****as Logan tried to focus on his surroundings. Faces came close and retreated, hands pulled at and pushed him, hoisted him onto something smooth and cool and then an electronic wheeze preceded his body being guided into a tunnel that was metallic and claustrophobic.**

**"Wha–?!"**

**"Lie still, please, Detective," a disembodied voice directed him from an audio link. "We're just wanting a picture of your brain. You've had a few nasty blackouts we need to check out."**

**It took superhuman effort for Logan to stay where he was. His skin crawled at the predicament in which he found himself. He hated hospitals and he hated being at the mercy of others, and he was two for two at the moment. He forced his body to go limp, waiting for the moment when he could convince someone he wasn't supposed to be here.**

**The electronic wheeze continued ****unaffected by his resistance, and Logan heard the audio voice reassure him occasionally. The platform on which he lay moved again, out of the tunnel, until it came to a gentle stop, then faces swam into view and hands grabbed him and deposited him back onto a gurney which was wheeled at practiced speed once more along a brightly lit corridor. Logan gritted his teeth against the ignominy of it, flexing his fingers into the cool sheet beneath him as he waited for the opportunity to escape.**

**A sudden turn and Logan was wheeled into a ward**** that seemed crowded with beds. Hands hefted him onto an empty one and Logan lay still and unresponsive. Soon, he thought, soon. They would leave him and he could get out of there, giving up the bed for someone who needed it.**

**"Nurse, this is Detective Logan.****" Logan looked for the speaker, and winced as a gentle hand manipulated a bright light into his eye. "He's to remain under observation. Possible concussion. We're waiting for results from a cat scan."**

**"Understood, Doctor."**

**"How do you feel, Detective?" **

**Logan focused on a knowledgeable, weary-worn face above a white coat. "Gro…groggy…"**

**"That's to be expected," the doctor said, straightening. "Nurse Clarence will look after you. I'll be back shortly."**

**Logan nodded, projecting false acquiescence and turned his head on the pillow, wishing them both gone. **_**Where the hell were his clothes? **_**He eyed in horror, the hospital garments draped over his body.**

**"Thank you, Doctor," the soft voice of the nurse ****supplied Logan's withheld gratitude. "Now, Detective, let's get you tucked into this bed," she said, straightening his hospital gown, pulling at its hems.**

_**Not on your life**_**, Logan thought. He batted her hands away. "I don't show you mine until you show me yours, Nurse," he said nastily.**

**"Now, that's not very nice, is it?"**

**"Take the good with the bad, la–" **

**"–you mean, the hospital's in lock-down?" A strident voice hurriedly passed the ward's opened doors and Logan craned his neck to catch the conversation.**

**"That's what I heard. No one leaves–"**

**The voices ****dispersed and Logan pushed himself up and off the bed. **_**Lock-down? **_**Something was going down and Logan needed to be a part of it. "This is where we part company, Nurse," he said, slipping out of the ward and breaking into an unsteady trot.**

**With a five minute window to discover why the hospital was suddenly sealed, Logan ignored Nurse Clarence's protests and disappeared through the nearest fire exit. Willing away dizziness and nausea and operating on pure adrenalin, Logan headed for a lower floor. He was unsure as to how he was going to escape, but he'd seen it done in the movies. You simply find a janitor's room or a Doctor's staff lounge, don their uniforms and slip out to mingle with the hospital populace. Simple. **

**With**** a cursory look out of the next fire exit, Logan saw that he was already on the ground floor. Squeezing his eyes shut against another wave of dizziness, he put out a hand, seeking the door jamb for support. Opening them again, he forced his eyes to focus, seeing a large foyer in front of him, lounge chairs to the right and a reception desk to his left. Another stab of strength re-energized him when he spotted Carolyn waiting at the counter behind Goren and Eames. Her head turned toward him and he watched her eyes widen as he staggered out into the foyer.**

**"Mike? Oh, hon, what are you doing?" She rushed toward him and he all but collapsed in her arms. "Shit! You idiot! ****What are you thinking? You look terrible!"**

**That was the second time today a woman had said that about him and Logan was starting to believe it.**

**"What's going on, Carolyn?" he panted. "Someone mentioned a lock-down…"**

**"Nicole…masquerading as a nurse. She may still be here."**

**"Then we'll find her–"**

**"**_**You**_**!? You are going nowhere except into a bed–"**

**"There he is!" A voice called from an opened elevator and two orderlies accompanied Nurse Clarence out of the car to walk purposefully toward him.**

**"Oh, no you don't,****" Logan gritted and pulled out of Carolyn's arms. "I'm not going without a fight." He turned to appeal to Goren, ready to offer his services in tracking down Wallace, when he was seized by the orderlies, who supported an arm each as they half-walked, half-dragged him back to the elevator.**

**The fight went out of Logan, his last rush of energy draining him.**

**"You know Detective Logan?" ****he heard Nurse Clarence ask Carolyn, then the elevator doors closed on the three of them and he felt the car rise back into the bowels of the hospital. **

**The door opened ****on the next level and he was assisted along the corridor to his ward. The room flexed and shrank around him as he was placed back on the bed.**

**"I'll take it from here," a cultured, accented voice assured the orderlies. A cotton-wool pressure sent Logan's head spiraling as he looked vaguely for the owner of the voice.**

**"Detective Logan, we meet again. How charming!**** But we haven't actually been formally introduced."**

**"Whaa–at?" Logan forced his eyes to stay open but they refused to focus any better on a blurred visage with long straight pale hair.**

**"Last time I saw you, you were skulking around the Mateus boathouse. I'm very annoyed with you, you know. Leading Alicia along like that, turning her against me. And in the end, you couldn't even protect her–"**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	11. Chapter 11

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

**oOo**

**Chapter Eleven**

**The elevator door closed upon the heart-wrenching scene of Mike flanked by the two orderlies, his eyes appealing to Carolyn to get him out of there. Carolyn was torn, wanting to do just that, yet mindful that Mike's welfare was best served by medical professionals. He **_**needed**_** to be dragged back to bed and made to stay there, but his obvious distress cut into her, pulling at her nerves and making her feel ill.**

**The nurse who accompanied the orderlies gently touched her arm. "I'm afraid he left his ward without Doctor's permission. I'm sorry you had to witness such heavy-handed treatment but Detective Logan has already demonstrated he can be a bit of a handful."**

**Carolyn nodded, staring at the closed doors. "I know. I'm his partner. But maybe he's well enough–"**

**"Did he look well en****ough to be released?" the nurse asked gently.**

**Carolyn's chin dipped before she slowly met the nurse's ****sympathetic eyes. "No…not really. How–?"**

**"We're still running tests. Doctor Trudgian will know more soon, but Detective Logan really must stay in the ward under observation. He was on the ferry?"**

**"Yes." Turning back to Bobby and Alex, Carolyn silently asked for suggestions of a course to take. She would honor the call back to duty but seize upon the okay to tend to the man she loved.**

**Bobby's nod in the direction of the elevators was all the encouragement Carolyn needed. She thumbed the button that would bring the car back down to the Ground Floor, then swung around as the hospital outer doors burst open with a flurry of uniforms holding back dogs on leads. The bomb squad that Bobby had requested earlier poured into the hospital and split upon cue as they began their sweep of the premises.**

**"Is this necessary?" the nurse asked, startled.**

**"Explosives were used on the Ferry," Bobby explained, "and I believe the perpetrator may now be in this hospital. The dogs will be able to find traces." **

**Carolyn noticed how he watched the opened doors closely, careful that no one slipped out while the bomb squad came in. He**** didn't add the possibility that he feared Nicole wasn't finished in her destructive spree, and could target the hospital. They were between a rock and a hard place, needing the hospital to be in lock-down to keep Nicole contained, but that meant the public were at risk if she had more destruction planned.**

**"Perhaps you could let people out the front way, one by one–" Carolyn's suggestion was interrupted by the elevator doors pinging**** open and she hurried in, leaving Bobby to make the decision. **

**The**** nurse entered the car with her and selected the first floor. Carolyn willed the doors to shut, agitated by their reluctance to close.**

**"He'll be fine,****" the nurse assured her.**

**Carolyn swung guiltily toward her, disturbed that she was allowing her anxiety over Mike's welfare show.**

**"I'm sure he will, Nurse…" Carolyn checked her I.D. for the first time. "…Clarence." **

**The doors opened and she strode out, looking left and right before realizing she had no idea where to go. Taking a breath and bunching her hands into fists, she forced herself to wait for ****Nurse Clarence to go first.**

**About to take a step after the nurse, Carolyn hastily jumped back as a trolley ****separated them, wheeled past at breakneck pace. A clutch of medics was driving it, faces set and determined. A patient wheeling his I.V. stand down the corridor flattened himself against the wall with a yelp, wide-eyed.**

**"Get**** back to your room!" Nurse Clarence ordered. "We're in lock-down, sir. You must remain in your room."**

**Carolyn had little experience in emergency ****wings but knew a 'crash cart' when she saw one. Following its progress, she saw a Doctor running down the corridor from the other direction, pushing past two nurses who weren't as fast as he. They were all congregating onto one room, the same toward which Nurse Clarence now hurried.**

**Her heart beating painfully in her chest, Carolyn followed them into chaos. Patients were hanging out of their beds, pointing toward the floor at the far end of the room, their explanations agitated as they tried to get the Doctor's attention.**

**"She just walked out…"**

**"…never came back…"**

**"…s****aid she was getting a Doctor…"**

**"…one down, two to go…"**

**The medics were heaving a body ****from the floor, a man in a hospital gown with an arm in a cast…**

**"Oh my God! **_**Mike!**_**"**

**Carolyn rushed forward but Nurse Clarence whipped round and pushed her back. "Detective! No! Give them space!"**

**Carolyn felt her arm grasped with a strength that hurt, but it didn't stop her. She dodged around and dragged the nurse with her as she pushed past staff to stand at the foot of the last bed. Three medics were laying Mike out on its surface as a Doctor bent over him, cutting off her view. Carolyn ducked round him but her other arm was grabbed. **

**"Okay!" She spun on them. "I'll stay back, but you gotta let me be with him!"**

**"I'm sorry, you can't. We have to close the curtains to shield the other patients and let the Doctors work."**

**"I'm not going–"**

**"While we're fighting you, Detective, we can't be with the others helping your partner. Please…come with us. **_**Now!**_**"**

**Carolyn ****grudgingly allowed herself to be ushered out of the room and found the doors summarily shut in her face. She peered through the window pane but the curtain was drawn around Mike's bed and the two nurses who had escorted her out were with the other patients, placating them back into their beds.**

**She could hear very little, but flurried movements of the curtain around the last bed hinted at the urgency with which the doctors and nurses were working. Her face pressed against the window, palms pushing against the closed doors, Carolyn could barely breathe as she waited and prayed Mike would be all right.**

**What had the other patients said? **_**She just walked out…**_** Nicole had been there. Had been with Mike and done God-knows-what to him. **

**She thrust open the doors. "He's been poisoned! Look for poison!" **

**Grabbed again by nurses, Carolyn kept yelling as she was back-pedaled out of the room. "Test him for **_**poison**_**, Goddammit!**

_**One down and two to go…**_

**Had the patient heard correctly? Had Nicole said that? **

**Bobby and Alex were in danger.**

**oOo**


	12. Chapter 12

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

_**A/N: Many thanks to those who emailed me with hospital descriptions. You may find some of your suggestions in the mix below. :-D**__** Special thanks to g-gal for beta-ing!**_

**oOo**

**Chapter Twelve**

**People stood huddled in small groups across the expanse of the ****hospital reception area or dazedly occupied every available seat grouping as they watched the dogs disappear into adjoining rooms and emerge again.**

**"Carolyn had a point, Bobby****," Alex said quietly from his side. "It might be best if we get some of these people out."**

**Goren considered the option, but dismissed it. "I'm willing to expedite the ****checking of the hospital for explosives… but I'm not prepared to lift lockdown yet. If there is a lot of movement of people… it will be too easy for Nicole… to mingle. If people are restricted…she'll stand out."**

**He**** moved away to check that the outer doors were secured again and reminded the two uniforms to stay alert at their posts. Returning to Alex waiting at the elevators, he gave the ground floor one last sweep. Bright abstract art adorned the walls, some prints almost as high as the ceiling. Smaller frames held photographs of groups of people, maybe doctors or patrons of the hospital, mostly smiling, proud to be associated with the hospital. A serene façade presaging a hive of life-saving services.**

**And, unfortunately, death.**

**Intercepting his partner's expectant gaze, Goren waved his hand toward the elevator. ****"I want you to search every odd-numbered floor…ahead of the bomb squad. I'll take every even-numbered floor… including this one."**

**"Even with the dogs–?" Alex began, pressing the elevator button set into the wall. The doors opened, the car waiting.**

**"I'm not taking chances. We know Nicole. **_**I **_**know Nicole."**

**She pressed her lips together, looking set to argue, then merely ****nodded.**

**Goren**** hesitated. He wanted to say more, but wasn't sure what. Some gesture to reassure her that he knew what he was doing, that he wasn't tilting at windmills. He could almost…**_**sense**_**…Nicole, she was so close.**

**"We've got her this time," he said, lamely, as the elevator doors closed, depriving his view of Alex' set chin and tentative smile. Goren couldn't shake the feeling that he was losing Eames in some indefinable way. Their newfound closeness had taken a back-burner to his desire to bring Nicole to justice and it was all his fault. **

_**When this is ove**__**r, **_**he thought. Then he would make amends.**

**Goren**** turned to begin his search of the ground floor, loping past one handler and his dog coming out of the men's restroom and passed another, warning occupants within the women's that they were coming in. He moved onto a suite of rooms where visiting doctors consulted with outpatients and checked each room thoroughly. Most were empty, with hastily-made signs explaining that appointments were cancelled due to the doctors' being needed in E.R. without actually stating the nature of the emergency.**

**The cafeterias were full, ****people treating the lockdown as an opportunity to drink coffee and nervously speculate as to the cause of the drama in which they found themselves unwitting participants. Goren checked not only the seating area but the kitchen as well, each dead-end strengthening his resolve to hunt Nicole down.**

**The E.R. was the busiest area, the medical staff there treating victims from the ferry ****disaster with no heed of the lockdown status or the presence of officers and their dogs. Goren admired their professionalism and dedication and again felt the weight of guilt press upon him. If not for him…**

**Eventually, ****he had to conclude that a thorough sweep of the ground floor produced nothing but startled patients and harassed hospital staff. The bomb squad was directing their dogs through the fire exits, taking their search up to the next floor. Goren returned to the hospital foyer and stopped to speak to a handler as he stepped into the elevator.**

**"We're done on this floor, Detective," the officer said. "You joining us on the next?"**

**Goren**** hesitated. The ground floor had been cleared, Eames would be working the first by now, and that left him open to check the second. He placed one foot in the elevator car, but couldn't go further. Something held him back. There was no guarantee that Nicole was even in the hospital, yet something told him she was. And now, he was getting a sense of unfinished business on this floor.**

**"No…no, I'm not.****" Goren thrust his hands into his pockets and stepped back. "I'm gonna… hang 'round here." He turned away, raising his chin, almost sniffing the air. **

_**She was here. He knew it.**_

**Retracing his steps, Goren checked every room, every service closet again. The same people he saw earlier looked back at him in a combination of confusion and irritation. Hitting the E.R., he took his time, checking again every patient, staff and visitor, but nothing rang an alarm within him and he dragged his feet out again.**

**Another corridor, another door, and the frustrated tension in ****Goren was making his neck and shoulders ache. The x-ray room was vacant this time, the attending nurse no doubt called elsewhere. Despite the lockdown, if medical personnel were needed in the E.R., then the police couldn't, and wouldn't, stop them.**

**The hospital ****was hushed as Goren paused outside the x-ray exam room and stretched his awareness for some evidence…**

**No ****opinionated voices carried to this section of the hospital, no purposeful footsteps hurrying in the corridor, no bored nurse with automatic responses on her tongue…**

**He sensed a movement behind him**** and whipped around, his gun in his hand without thinking. A searing pain, a slice of white-hot heat under his armpit, a flash of crazed eyes and snarling teeth as Nicole thrust for his heart. **

**His gun slid uselessly from numb fingers as Goren's knees buckled under him.**

**"Two down. **_**One**_** to go. I am **_**so**_** enjoying myself." **

**Nicole's voice came from afar, from somewhere thick and indistinct but which heralded an outraged roaring in Goren's head.**

_**Alex**__**…**_

**oOo **

**Leaving the elevator car, Alex scoped the corridor to determine where to start first, and immediately saw ****Barek with her back pressed against the closed door of a room. She was threading her fingers through her hair with one hand and thumbing her cell phone with the other. She looked distressed, stabbing at her phone in frustration.**

**"Carolyn!"**

**Barek looked up, startled, then pushed herself from the door and headed at a trot toward Alex, stowing her phone.**

**"Alex! I was just calling you." Carolyn stopped in front of her. "Nicole's here!" Grabbing her by the shoulders, Barek's grip was desperate and urgent. "She was in there," she said, flinging an arm toward the room further up, "with Mike. He's…oh, God!" Taking a deep breath, she began again. "Nicole left Mike unconscious on the floor. The doctors are with him now, but…" Her eyes were wide and panicked and Alex nodded her understanding.**

**"He'll be all right," Alex assured her. "They'll look after him." She felt deeply for the other woman, knowing she herself would be distraught if it were Bobby in there and Carolyn giving her the same platitudes.**

**"No! That's not all. Nicole is after you and Bobby–"**

**"I would think she's after anyone who gets in her way–"**

**"No, one of the patients repeated something he heard her say. **_**One down, two to go. **_**Nicole knows Mike because he was with Alicia Mateus that night we surprised her at the Wendell estate. She'll be after you two next."**

**"Carolyn…I don't think–"**

**"****I have to do something–" Carolyn released Alex suddenly and headed for the elevator.**

**"Carolyn, wait!" Alex called after her. "We've got to tell Bobby…" She pulled out her cell and dialed his number, catching up to Barek and steering her to one of the padded seats in the waiting area. An unmanned nurse's station was at their backs, the rest of the chairs unoccupied. Alex chewed her lip when Bobby's number went to voice mail. "He's not answering–"**

**"Alex! She's got to him, too–****" Carolyn stopped abruptly, hanging her head. "Oh, shit, listen to me! I sound hysterical. If this is what this woman does to people–"**

**Alex laid a hand on Carolyn's arm. "I think this is what worry over someone you love does to a person." She smiled gamely, refusing to admit to worrying over Bobby's not answering his phone. "Go back to Mike and leave Nicole to–"**

**"No! She doesn't know me, Alex. She won't know me from a visitor or patient. I'll borrow a doctor's coat. She won't be expecting me to be looking for her."**

**Alex had to agree****, but if the woman's mind was on her injured lover, how effective would she be? "What about Logan? Can you do this, not knowing how he is?"**

**Carol****yn's eyes were drawn to his room, its doors still closed to them. "They won't let me near him. If anything happens to him and she gets away with it–"**

**"Let's compromise, then. You stay here until you know he's stable, and then… **_**then**_** call me and join us. Okay?"**

**"And if **_**you **_**don't answer **_**your**_** phone?"**

**Alex started to assure her she would, before realizing Carolyn was right again. "Bobby was on the ground floor when I left him. He's due to go to the second and every even-numbered floor when he finishes. I'll try the ground first, then move up to the second. That leaves you and the bomb squad to cover this floor."**

**Carolyn glanced worriedly up the corridor and nodded again. "That man's giving me gray hairs, Alex."**

**Alex ****squeezed her arm and stood to leave. "I always knew he would, but I never waste my breath." **

**oOo**

**The mist cleared in front of Goren's eyes and he struggled to orientate his location and predicament. His jaw was pressed flat to the floor, his body felt like lead and the pain under his left arm throbbed with each heartbeat. Raising his head briefly, the effort excruciating and draining, he recognized the exam room of the x-ray clinic. A spreading red stain on the linoleum was evidence of his blood loss and the reason he blacked out. His head thumped back to the floor.**

**"Ah, Bobby, you're back." He heard ****Nicole, but couldn't see her. "I was hoping you'd regain consciousness long enough so we could have a little talk. A goodbye, if you will. I love closure, don't you?"**

**Goren ****tongued over the taste of blood in his mouth, shifting his head toward her voice to see her sitting on a metal-framed stool about two feet away from him. "Get fu…," he mumbled into a threatening wave of nausea, that small retaliation costing him.**

**"You still haven't learned better manners," she said. "Or is it only around me, you show your true colors?"**

**Nicole pushed forward in the chair and kicked his hand with her foot.**

**"How pathetic you look. Yes, definitely the real you."**

**Goren opened his mouth to curse her again, but it required too much effort. He narrowed his eyes at her, letting them convey ****how much he despised her. **

**She merely smiled and held up a cell phone. **_**His**_** cell. "Alex has been trying to ring you." She waggled the phone at him. "You've got her caller I.D. as 'Eames' still. Didn't our little exercise in the Wendell basement bring out the more 'romantic' you? I am so disappointed it didn't. What a waste of time."**

**"C…c…come…clo…." Goren tried to get out the words but couldn't quite manage it.**

**"I don't think so, Bobby. I like you at my feet, but I'm not stupid. Besides, Alex will be looking for you, so I have to go and head her off. We don't want her seeing you like this, do we?" She stood up and walked carefully around him.**

**"Y…you…won't…g…ge…"**

**Nicole sighed theatrically from behind him, probably poised at the outer door. "You always think that, and you're always wrong. You've done a good job at sealing me in, but it hasn't stopped me from picking you off one by one. Adieu, Bobby dearest. 'Til we meet in the after-life."**

**The door closed behind her and Goren was left contemplating his hatred for the woman, his fear for Alex and the growing stain on the lino.**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	13. Chapter 13

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

_**Thanks again to g-gal for her priceless beta-ing.**_

**oOo**

**Chapter ****Thirteen**

**Alex was not surprised to be cut off before she reached the elevator by a member of the bomb squad and his dog as they entered via the fire door. She stepped back to give them right of way, then changed her mind and lifted a hand to catch his attention.**

**"Detective Eames, Major Case," she introduced herself. "You're in contact with Detective Silvera from the one-two-eight?"**

**The young officer dipped his head. "Yes, ma'am. We've been instructed to give her regular updates."**

**"She's given you a photo I.D. of the woman we're after?"**

**"Certainly has. With instructions to approach with caution. We haven't had confirmation that she's here though."**

**"I can give you that confirmation now, Officer." Alex jerked her head up the corridor toward Logan's room and saw Carolyn peering through its window. "She's attacked one of our detectives." She pulled out her cell phone. "I've been trying to contact Detective Goren–"**

**"He was on the Ground Floor last I saw him, and depending on where he is within the hospital, you may or may not reach him. Some of these rooms are filled with sensitive equipment and cell coverage is deliberately jammed."**

**Alex gazed up at his earnest face, seeing intelligence and good sense stamped upon it, unruffled despite the volatile situation. The bomb squad was known to pick their officers carefully, for good reason. ****It was a fair explanation for her call not getting through to Bobby and Alex hoped that he was right.**

**A disturbance up the corridor caught Alex' attention and she saw Carolyn step back as a squad member demanded entry into Logan's room. The doors opened, dog and handler slipped through, and so did Barek. Alex' eyes lowered over a smile at her colleague's resourcefulness.**

**"I'd like you to contact Silvera," Alex said, turning back to the officer. "Tell her we're going to need more units if possible. A hospital of this size–"**

**"The hospital does sprawl, Detective, but I believe they've got all the exits covered. It's just a matter of time an organized search flushes this woman out. And if she's planning an explosive party, our dogs have a perfect record."**

**Alex wished she had his confidence. **

**Logan's door opened again and Alex assumed Barek was being evicted again. Instead, she saw a harried doctor stride out and head for the elevator.**

**"Thank you, Officer," Alex said before moving to intercept the Doctor.**

**She introduced herself, a flick of her hand directing his attention to the badge on the hip band of her trousers. She noted his name on the I.D. affixed to his lightweight coat. "Detective Logan, Doctor…how is he?"**

**Doctor Trudgian squeezed his eyes shut and noisily blew air through his lips. His short round frame and almost bald head gave him an almost comical look, belied by the compassion and weariness in his face. **

**"****Fortunate man," Trudgian said, "in more ways than one. We were able to bring him back and he's got two women worrying over him already. I should be so lucky."**

**Alex' heart ****thumped. They had been that close to losing Logan. "What happened?" she asked, her throat tight.**

**"****Cocaine-induced myocardial infarction. **** In layman's terms, cardiac arrest brought about by an overdose of cocaine." **

**Alex eyes widened. **_**A heart attack? **_**Damn Nicole. She thought of Carolyn and how she must be feeling. **

"**I don't understand it," the Doctor went on. "When I left him earlier, he had an increased heart rate and elevated blood pressure, some irritability and loss of coordination, but there was no evidence of–"**

**"Is it possible he overdosed **_**after **_**you left him?" she asked Trudgian.**

**"Where would he obtain the narcotic?****"**

**"We believe the woman we're looking for is posing as a nurse. It's possible she injected Detective Logan–"**

**"We've got to get the patients out–!"**

**Alex was tempted to agree with him, but wasn't ****yet prepared to undermine Bobby's decisions. "We can't initiate hysteria, Doctor. They already know they're in lockdown. The perpetrator is not after your patients. May I speak with the others in Detective Logan's room? They're now witnesses."**

**"Of course. They're ****more than willing to talk to anyone who'll listen."**

**"Thank you. Oh, one more thing, Doctor…who raised the alarm?"**

**The doctor paused, thinking ****back. "It would have been Nurse Bates, the regular nurse at this station. I know one of the other patients pressed the call signal from their bed. By the time I got there, she and Nurse Clarence were ahead of me. The patients were out of their beds and the Detective was on the floor. She's still in there if you want to talk to her."**

**Alex ****nodded and let him resume his rounds. Bobby needed to know Nicole was here, but more information from the patients would be pertinent. She glanced at the closed doors of the elevator, wondering where Bobby was. A part of her strained to be with him, watching his back, apprehending Nicole together, but she forced herself to turn away and walk up the corridor.**

**The ****hospital room hummed with excitement, the patients perched against pillows in their beds, swapping stories with each other. Six beds had been jammed into a space that should only have accommodated four, evidence of the emergency under which the hospital was working. **

**Alex couldn't see Carolyn,**** but the bed at the far end of the room was still shrouded by an olive green curtain, and Alex assumed it shielded Logan and Barek from the avid stares of the other patients. The nurse Alex had met briefly on the ground floor was with a young man in the middle bed, checking his I.V. apparatus and listening attentively.**

**Deciding to start ****her interviews with the man in the bed opposite Logan's, Alex smiled reassuringly at the patient, an elderly man with bandages around his shoulder and left arm, and cuts and bruises to his face. **

**"I'm Detective Eames, sir, investigating the incident here earlier. Would you mind repeating what you saw?"**

**The patient pushed himself upright with his good ****arm and tugged on the neck of his hospital gown. "Don't mind at all, Detective. Thought the ferry accident would be the most exciting thing to happen to me while I'm visiting New York. I was wrong. Front seat to a hospital emergency as well. Lockdowns and code blues I think they call 'em. Wait 'til I tell the wife. Hannah wouldn't come out with me today. Wanted to stay in the hotel and nurse a cold…"**

**"Sir, if you wouldn't mind…what happened here?"**

**"A nurse did something wrong, I tell you. Sweet pretty thing, too. All petite and blonde and 'butter won't melt in my mouth', thank you very much. Smiled at me and asked how I was and then turned round to that man and was all over him. Downright envious, I was. My chest got all cut up from exploding glass." He started shoving aside his bed sheet in preparation to showing Alex his wounds. "I could have shown her–"**

**"What did she do, sir?" Alex ****interrupted to keep him focused.**

**"Dismissed the orderlies like she owned the place. S****poke to the man in the bed over there for a while. Fussed all over him. He was all groggy and out of it. I don't think he knew what was going on. Got his arm in a cast too, like me. Was he on the ferry? Lucky escape, don't you think? I thought we were goners–"**

**"Did the 'nurse' give him anything?" Alex persisted.**

**"Yes. An injection. They do that all the time, these needle–pushers. Think that's the answer to every ailment. Stick a needle in you and hope for the–"**

**Alex ****pulled out her cell phone, retrieving the photo of Nicole. "Was this the woman you saw?" she asked, handing it to him.**

**The man peered at the picture. "Well, I don't have my glasses, but that could be her." He put out a hand and grabbed Alex' arm. "Is she a wanted criminal, Detective? Wait 'til I tell Hannah!"**

**Alex reclaimed her phone and stepped back, thanking the man and looked toward the screened bed. Quiet voices emanated from behind the curtain and Alex realized the duty nurse must be there with Carolyn.**

**Stopping**** briefly at each of the other patient's beds, Alex displayed Nicole's photo and received either affirmative or maybe answers from each. They were unanimous, though, in recalling an attractive nurse who hovered over Mike's bed and then left quickly. **

**She joined Nurse Clarence at the middle bed, the patient a youth of maybe seventeen or eighteen.**** He had a large bandage across the shaved side of his skull, but he looked alert and lucid enough to speak to her.**

**"Yep, that's her," he said, eagerly confirming Nicole's presence from the photo. "She looked quite nasty as she left and I swear I heard her say, 'one down, two to go.' That's when I hit the call button for another nurse. I didn't like the way she said that."**

**Alex ****paused, staring at the youth, making up her mind as to his reliability as a witness. **

**She agreed with him.**

**The curtain around the end bed parted and a nurse stepped out, smoothing wisps of light brown hair back into place behind her ears. The coil at the back of her head was still neat, but her uniform was creased in places, her I.D. askew. ****Nurse Bates was tall and big-boned, her mouth firm and eyes alert, darting to the other beds, assessing the status of her other patients in a glance. If she were the first nurse on the scene, she would have been the one to have administered to Logan while he was on the floor. Even if Logan had been a difficult patient, Alex felt this nurse would have been more than his match.**

**Stepping up to her, Alex was subjected to a piercing brown gaze that appraised her quickly and came to a decision.**

**"You're another detective and you want to know what I saw," she said bluntly.**

**Alex knew she had found an expert witness for the D.A.**

**"Thank you,**** I would."**

**"I got the call at the Duty Station at five twenty. I went to the room and found my patients either out of bed or trying to get out. They alerted me to the situation that Detective Logan was on the floor and struggling to get up. I went to assist him, but he was disorientated and uncooperative, so I paged for extra assistance and attempted to check his vitals. Soon after the orderlies arrived he became unresponsive and we initiated a Code Blue."**

**"While you were at your station or en route here," Alex asked, "did you see anyone? Leaving the room? In the corridor?"**

**Nurse Bates shook her head. "No, the patients were full of stories about a nurse who was in here, but, from their various descriptions and attempts at being helpful, I couldn't ascertain that it was a nurse on duty, or even anyone I knew."**

**Alex showed her Nicole's photograph.**

**"I'm sorry****. I haven't seen that woman. Not here or anywhere."**

**"Could she have walked past without you seeing her?"**

**The nurse**** stiffened, assuming Alex' question was a criticism of her diligence. "I don't sit at my station and count spots on the wall, Detective. There is paperwork–"**

**Alex took that as a yes. Nicole had slipped past and the nurse was probably genuinely flaying herself for not being more observant. "I understand."**

**Still bristling, Nurse Bates glared at Alex. "She was **_**not**_** one of our nurses, Detective."**

**"I know." Nicole's talent was blending in, assuming roles competently, and melting away. Alex could not lay any blame ****upon the hospital or its staff.**

**"But if you find her and happen to ****inadvertently injure her in any way," Nurse Bates added, "I'd like to…" Her smile was far from pleasant. "…tend her."**

**Alex hid a reciprocal smile. Nicole in the care of a nurse who took mishandling of her patients personally? That might be interesting enough to encourage.**

**oOo**

**Carolyn's**** tentative hand on his cheek sparked a twitch of response, Mike's belabored breathing arresting briefly before continuing again. Carolyn hoped that he was somehow aware she was with him, there for him, even if she could do no more than touch and watch him. **

**Covered to his shoulders with a sheet, ****under which the I.V. tube hooked to its stand disappeared, Mike looked ashen and disturbed, his eyes flickering beneath his eyelids in a staccato beat of distress. The nurse had finally left them alone, after explaining what they had done and how he would be faring.**

**"It's best we keep him sedated now," Nurse Bates had assured Carolyn as she tugged the sheet around him. "After an overdose of this kind, he'd be experiencing blurred vision and dizziness, disorientation, delusions even. A loss of coordination would explain how he came to be out of bed. He probably tried to go after the woman who was with him." She moved round Carolyn to the other side of the bed. "He's likely to have chest pains and a nasty headache too, so it's kinder to keep him asleep."**

**"He's still full of it?" Carolyn asked. "The cocaine?" She shuddered to think of the destructive stuff contaminating Mike's body.**

**"We've injected the Detective with various drugs necessary to revive him. Sodium epinephrine, sodium bicarbonate to neutralize his bloodstream, calcium to stimulate his heart, lidocaine to sedate him and control his heartbeat, and bretyline to counteract any heart irregularity." She twitched the curtain open to step through it. "He's a strong man. We just have to wait now."**

**Carolyn**** smiled wanly in thanks as the nurse departed, letting the curtain drop back into place.**

**"That's it, hon," she whispered****, her eyes feeding on his beloved features as she stroked the hair back from his forehead. "You're not escaping me after this. I'm not taking 'no' for an answer. I'm going to handcuff you to my bed if I have to." **

**She dared to reach forward and kiss him on the lips and his ****dark lashes fluttered slightly, the heavy breathing easing slightly in response. Carolyn's heart swelled. She **_**had**_** managed to comfort him in some small way.**

**"Carolyn?"**

**Alex Eames stood at the parted curtain, her face softened in concern.**

**"Alex."**

**"How is he?"**

**Carolyn looked back down at Mike, now peaceful, but she remembered the relieved, wide-eyed looks on the nurses' faces as they made him comfortable after the doctor left them. The unspoken glances they gave her as she moved up to the bed persuaded her she nearly lost him.**

**"Heavily sedated. But he's still ****with us." Tightening her jaw, her eyes narrowed on the other detective, not hiding her contempt for Nicole Wallace. "She pumped him full of cocaine, Alex. For what? No better reason than because he was at the Mateus estate that day?"**

**Alex shrugged, her eyes straying to Logan's face. "Who can say what motivates Nicole?"**

**"You're convinced now that's who it is****?" **

**"I'm convinced. And we'll find her, Carolyn."**

**oOo**

**Hearing the door click shut and a key turn in the lock should have galvanized Goren into a ****huge surge for his feet, but while the mind was screaming for his action, his body refused to obey.**

**A**** sense of futility flooded him before he focused on what he needed to do. **

**Willing ****his heart to slow, he used slow deep breaths to restrict his heart from pumping excessive blood to his wound. He clamped down on his panic and pushed the pain to the back of his consciousness, then eyed the curtain hanging from the changing cubicle to the right of him, deciding to use it to staunch the blood seeping from the gash beneath his armpit.**

**The fact that Nicole not only missed his heart but left him al****ive, surprised and troubled him. **

**St****eeling himself, Goren bit down on his lip and planted his feet under him and pushed up and to the side, grunting through the pain. Waves of nausea threatened to shut him down. Agony left his throat in a distressed whine as he shoved his heels into the floor and, using his right hand for additional leverage, scooted himself across five feet of floor to reach the curtain. **

**He bunched**** it in his fist, set his jaw and heaved on it, bringing it down, fighting its dusty, suffocating fall onto his face. Hunching over the cloth, he got his breathing under control and tried to ignore the excruciating throb in his side. Jerkily rolling it into a bundle, he shoved it against his side, panting, and hugged it to him with a left arm that was numb and next to useless.**

**Goren**** pivoted on his hip, his eyes blurring as he scoped the room in which he collapsed. **

**It was little more than an ante-room to the main area that housed the x-ray apparatus. There were two chairs, the stool upon which Nicole sat earlier, a small table with scattered dog-eared magazines lying haphazardly upon it, two changing cubicles, one now without its curtain****, and little else. A wall phone nestled between two medical charts had Goren's pulse racing with promise, until he saw the cut cord dangling mid-air. **

**Goren's heart bottomed. There was no sign of his dropped gun, nor the cell that Nicole had taken from him. Resourceful enough to acquire a key for this room, taking his gun and phone with her would be a given.**

**He had two thoughts in his head. To warn Alex and get Nicole, and not necessarily in that order.**

**But he had no idea how he would do either.**

**oOo**

**Before Alex could reach the ****first floor elevator, her cell phone chirped in her pocket. Hastily checking it, she found a message from Bobby.**

_**Battery**__** low. texting instead. meet me on the roof. hurry**_

**Alex frowned over the message****, caution making her pause. The reasoning for the text message instead of a call was valid and could explain why she couldn't reach him earlier, but the meeting place was problematic. How and why did Bobby reach the roof so quickly in his search? **

**She dialed his number to verify and it went to voice mail again. She text a message back.**

_**Confirm. roof?**_

**In less than a minute, another text returned.**

_**Hurry**_

**Alex would heed the message but only with backup. She strode up the corridor toward a bomb squad officer finishing a room and motioned her to him. Meeting him at the fire exit door, she directed him to follow her through the door.**

**"We're going to the roof, Officer," she said, leading him up the stairs.**

**"The elevator…****?"**

**Alex ****looked over her shoulder. She couldn't see much of him beneath his black uniform, helmet, goggles and gloves, but he looked like he could handle Nicole one-handed. He may have to.**

**"Too vulnerable."**

**"Understood, Detective****. You're not taking any chances." **

**Alex set a ****hard pace, taking the steps two at a time. By the time they reached the roof, she was panting slightly. The officer pressed his back to the fire door, gun in hand, waiting for her signal.**

**Her gun held ready in both hands, Alex nodded to him to open the door.**

**He flung it open and burst forward, covering her until she found shelter against the side of a chimney stack. Alex waited, gun raised, slowing her breath****s while she listened.**

**"Bobby?"**

**The only**** sound was the constant hum of the air-conditioning units. There was no movement in the early night air that hung expectantly, waiting for the moon to rise. **

**Eyeing**** her next cover point, a tall electrical switchbox, Alex slipped across the concrete to flatten her back against it, while she panned the roof from a different angle. The officer replaced her vigil at the chimney stack, ready for her next move. **

**The roof radiated in four arms; they were in the centre of the hub and Alex could see down the full length of one arm from where she was. Again, no movement nor sign of Bobby. She slipped around to the next flat face of the switchbox which gave her a view of the roof of another hospital wing. Nothing. She repeated the move and scan until she had taken in all four wings with no result other than the conviction that Bobby wasn't here.**

**Relaxing slightly, she stepped away from**** the switchbox.**

**"****I'll take it from here, Officer. Thanks for your assistance."**

**"Any time, Detective," he nodded and melted into the open yaw of the fire exit.**

**Alex ****kept up her guard, ready to follow him. If the message came from Bobby then he should be here. If it didn't, then there was an even better reason for her to remain alert.**

**Slipping back to the exit, her head snapping in all directions, Alex found no presence, hostile or otherwise. Pressed against the outer wall, she peered into the fire exit, her eyes adjusting to see no movement nor sheltering recess. She could hear the squad officer's boots on the stairs below, heading further down. **

**Allowing her gun to drop, she kept it by her side as she stepped into the stairwell, training her senses again for anything past the stillness and beyond the darkness. **

**The**** soft, vibrating burr of a cell phone broke the silence, followed by the short blips of a message coming through…**

_**Bobby's phone.**_

_**Behind her.**_

**Alex started to turn when she was seized from behind and hauled back through the door onto the roof. **

**oOo**

_**tbc**__**…**_


	14. Chapter 14

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

_**Don't blame my beta if I've made any mistakes. I played with it some after she sent it back. Sorry, g-gal, **__**but it cried out for more tweaking. Thanks for finding those downunder discrepancies and particularly, thank you for helping with Alex' voice.**_

**oOo**

**Chapter ****Fourteen**

**Unable to save herself, ****Alex fell on her back, splaying her arms to prevent her head cracking onto the concrete. Her gun flew from her grasp and the fire exit door shut with a thump. **

"_**Get out of here!**__**" **_**a voice hissed.****"**_**Now!"**_

**A body slammed**** on top of her and a flash of silver caught the twilight. Alex twisted to her left, hearing a metallic grate against the concrete beside her. Pushing hard she knocked away the next threat from the sliver of steel. It bounced away with a rattle and scrape.**

**Zeroing in on the pale face above her, Alex recognized the smooth features of Nicole Wallace, triumphant in her control. She wore a nurse's uniform, her hair bound back from her face, smiling inanely at Alex as if they were sharing a mutual rest on the rooftop. Stars sprinkled within the black backdrop behind her as nightfall became complete, a near full moon beginning its reign.**

**"You don't want to be fighting me, Alex," she said sweetly, "you want to be listening."**

**"Listen to this," Alex gritted, then thrust upward, dislodging the woman. Poised on her hands and knees, Alex looked desperately for her gun before Nicole was on top of her again. Ready for her, Alex pushed upward and to the side and Nicole was flung onto her back. Crab-walking in a hasty grid around the fire exit, Alex' hands searched for her weapon in the near-dark.**

**The unmistakable ****click of a cocked gun froze her with her hands flat on the concrete. Raising her eyes slowly, she looked into the barrel of a Glock 17. **_**Bobby's gun.**_** If Nicole had both Bobby's phone **_**and**_** his gun…**

**"Where is he?" Alex' eyes traveled up Nicole's ****locked arm to the huge smile on her face.**

**"I told you, you should be listening to me, not fighting me. **_**Now**_** you ask the pertinent questions when it's too late." Nicole quickly glanced to the side, her aim unwavering. Another glance to the other side and her face lit up. With Alex still in her gun sight, Nicole side-walked slowly toward the electrical switchbox, transferred the gun to her left hand and swiftly hunkered down to pick up an object that caught and threw back the moonlight in an elongated spark. **

**"A beauty, isn't it?" Nicole crooned, holding ****the knife up for Alex to see. "A stiletto. Elegant, deadly and…" A flick of her right wrist and the stiletto had disappeared within the uniform Nicole wore. "…easily hidden." **

**Both her hands grasping the gun, ****Nicole started to walk toward Alex, who braced herself to either dodge or fight.**

**"Tell me what happened to B****obby, Nicole." Her heart hammering, Alex made her voice as neutral as possible, refusing to give Nicole the satisfaction of acceding defeat.**

**Nicole pretended to consider her request, then shook her head. "No, I offered before. You rejected my small favor." Nicole took another step forward until she was only about two feet away, Bobby's gun pointed at Alex' heart.**

**Alex couldn't dodge a bullet at such close range and considering the ease with which Nicole held the gun, she didn't doubt the other woman's skill. Any attack toward Nicole would precipitate the gun going off.**

**She waited. She had to give Nicole the first move.**

**The air-conditioning units hummed with their same steady drone, the moon drifted higher, more stars pierced the velvet of the night, and Alex waited.**

**"Use that gun, Nicole, and ****the whole squad'll swarm the stairs on their way up. You'll never make it down."**

**Nicole's smile ****ended in her eyes as an excited glitter. Her right hand dropped from the gun, her left cupping it with the same ease. Nicole was clearing her right hand, making it free for…**

_**The stiletto!**_

_**"Elegant, deadly and…"**_

**In her hand.**

**Alex saw the flash against the moonlight and flung herself to the right in an awkward twist that clawed at her spine and threw her balance. Rolling as soon as her hip hit the concrete, Alex ignored the jarring pain and planted her hands and feet to push herself upright again. Eyes raised, head low, Alex barreled into Nicole's knees and took her down.**

**The other woman shrieked in fury and her body twisted beneath ****Alex like a crocodile in a death roll. Alex heard the unmistakable clatter of a gun on concrete and lunged for the sound. This time her hand closed over the smooth, cool metal of Bobby's Glock. She thrust herself back onto her feet and stood over Nicole, the gun aimed between the other woman's eyes.**

**Nicole froze, her ****chest heaving, fingers twitching on the stiletto still in her right hand.**

**oOo**

**On ****his side, the crude bandage jammed against the wound in his side, Bobby shook his head clear of the waves of agony mingled with thick, tilting dizziness. He started a mantra that would give him the resolve to stay conscious.**

_**Get out and warn Alex. Get out and warn Alex.**_

**Dragging his**** resisting, pain-wracked body a mere inch took all his strength and he collapsed again to the floor.**

_**Not good enough, Goren! **_

_**Get out and warn Alex!**_

**He channeled all he had into another push toward the X-ray clinic exit.**

"**I…gotta…warn…Alex."**

**oOo**

**His dark head on the white pillow was ****at peace, his mind seemingly untroubled, whereas it had to be furiously mending a traumatized body. Even though their relationship was new, Carolyn expected him to wake and grin and roll over and…**

**Carolyn looked up ****from Mike's inert body in the hospital bed as Nurse Bates touched her gently on the shoulder. **

"**Go get yourself some coffee and something to eat, Detective," the nurse said. "Stretch your legs. I'll look after him until you get back."**

"**I don't want him to wake up and not have someone he knows—"**

"**I understand, but it won't be for a good few hours yet. You've got plenty of time."**

**Carolyn ****leaned in and stroked a hand across the bed sheet lying on Mike's chest. "You're wrong, Nurse. This has brought home to me how little time we've got."**

**The nurse bent down and twitched the sheet higher. "He's more to you than a partner?"**

**Carolyn nodded numbly. "A lot more. I just realized how much."**

"**Then I'll look after him doubly well.**** There's a cafeteria on the ground floor. I suggest you make use of it."**

**Realizing ****Nurse Bates wasn't taking 'no' for an answer, Carolyn reluctantly pushed herself to her feet, bent over Mike for another soft kiss to his lips and stepped back.**

"**I'll leave, Nurse, but it won't be for a coffee break." Nicole still had to be found. "Keep him safe," she said fiercely.**

"**I will."**

**Carolyn dragged her feet out of the ward and down the corridor toward the elevator. Within seconds of pressing the call button, the door opened and Carolyn took the car to the ground floor. Because she didn't know where Bobby and Alex had searched, she figured she'd start at the ground floor and work her way up. **

**With**** the receptionist counter and restrooms to her left, Carolyn decided to start to her right. Striding down the corridor, she spied a hurrying figure in front of her that looked familiar. Carolyn quickened her steps to catch up, but the woman darted down another corridor, still with Carolyn in pursuit. Another turn and Carolyn recognized the woman fumbling with keys at the door beneath a shingle designating the room as an x-ray clinic.**

**The woman**** disappeared inside and Carolyn broke into a trot.**

**Scoping the room, she saw Bree Archer at the clinic's inner door. "Ms Archer! What—?" **

"**Detective!" Archer took a step back from the door in shock, but recovered quickly, shutting the door and turning to face Carolyn. "Thank God! Someone I know. I've found myself stuck in this hospital in some sort of lock-down and no idea why—"**

"**How did you get to the ****hospital?" Carolyn demanded. "I left you on the other side of the bridge."**

**Archer stepped away from the door, ****and joined Carolyn in the middle of the reception area. "The officers on the bridge said the ferry wounded were brought here. I'm accredited in First Aid so I came to help if I could. Can I help you with anything?"**

**Carolyn ****frowned, not buying Archer's explanation for being there. "I was looking for the cafeteria," she lied.**

"**That's easy. Go back the way you've come and turn right at the corner. You've got a choice—" Archer walked toward Carolyn, ushering her out, the urgency in her actions and voice even more suspicious.**

"**I think I'll look in here first****. Stay where you are," Carolyn said, dodging her and closed her hand around the handle of the door Archer had just closed. **

"**This isn't working," Archer said, disappearing down the corridor.**

**In a snap decision, Carolyn let her go****, deeming Archer's interest in the room more important than apprehending the Australian. She pushed open the door.**

**Carolyn froze at the sight of Bobby on the ****floor awash in a pool of blood.**

**oOo**

**Allowing the tension to escape from her in ****a sibilant hiss, Alex held the gun steady, calculating the odds of winning a duel between a bullet and a knife. She concluded the bullet would win, but the stiletto left in her stomach would not be something from which she would easily recover. It wasn't a case of avoiding the triangular-shaped blade but presenting a non-fatal target to it.**

**Conscious of the manic glitter in Wallace's eyes, Alex ****wished she had some of Bobby's psychological edge to talk Nicole down. **

"**It's over, Nicole. You're going down. Either with a bullet in you or without. I know what I'd choose."**

"**That's your problem, Alex. You and I are poles apart. I would have thought you'd be more interested in getting back down to save Bobby."**

"**What have you done to him?!" Tiring of Nicole's taunts, Alex' control slipped.**

"**Me to know, you to find out," Nicole trilled.**

**Seeing ****Nicole's arm bunch, Alex' finger squeezed the trigger.**

**oOo**

**Carolyn tore out of the x-ray room and down the corridor ****shouting as she went.**

"_**Officer down! Officer down!"**_

**Bursting into the foyer, she ****yelled at the receptionist behind the counter. "Get a doctor to the x-ray room! And medical cart! **_**Now!**_**"**

**Running back the way she'd come, she pulled out her cell and dialed Eames' number. She barely heard it ring as she retraced her steps and fell to her knees beside Bobby. He was clutching a bloodied bundle of material to him with slack fingers. Checking for a pulse at his neck and balancing her cell between her shoulder and ear, she put what pressure she could on the material, realizing he had been trying to staunch the flow of blood from his wound.**

**A faint pulse. **_**Thank God!**_

**There was a flurry of movement behind her and a doctor rushed into the room, his coat billowing behind him. A nurse followed and Carolyn gave them room, still holding the cloth to Bobby's side. Eames' phone went to voice mail and Carolyn snapped her phone shut.**

_**Damn!**_

"**We'****ve got it now, Detective," the doctor urgently said, and Carolyn reluctantly got to her feet.**

**She wanted to stay, but Nicole was still on the loose and Bree Archer was also suspect. And she needed to find out why Alex wasn't answering her phone. Torn by indecision, Carolyn looked down at his lifeless body. **

_**They'll look a**__**fter you, Bobby. I'm sorry. I've got to go.**_

**Pushing past more medical personnel**** as she headed out of the x-ray room, Carolyn rounded up two officers drawn by the activity, hurriedly explaining as she went.**

"**We've got another suspect. A slim red-head, also Australian, 'bout five foot ten, in her forties. Last seen leaving the x-ray room. I want her apprehended for questioning. I don't know if she's armed, but I'd treat her with the same caution as Wallace. Let Silvera know and she can alert the rest of the team."**

"**Where**** are you—?"**

**Carolyn barely looked at the officer as she**** headed toward the stairwell. "Detective Eames isn't answering her phone. I want to know why."**

**Taking the flight of steps ****in bounds, Carolyn soon reached the door to the first floor. Coming out near the nurse's station, she called to the nurse on duty. **

"**Is Detective Eames on this floor?"**

**A quick shake of the nurse's head convinced Carolyn that the nurse didn't even need to think about it. She knew who Carolyn was talking about but she didn't know where she was.**

**Carolyn paused, and because she couldn't not ask, "Detective Logan. How is—?"**

**The nurse smiled. "Resting. Nurse Bates is guarding him. That's all you need to know to not worry."**

**Carolyn ****nodded in gratitude, then ducked back into the stairwell and climbed higher. **

**She asked the nurse manning the second floor for Alex' whereabouts, and received the same negative. **

**Back on the stairs, she heard a gunshot, followed quickly by ****another. Her legs pumping, she pushed herself higher toward the sound. Doors above her were opening and more police joined her on the stairs, a ribbon of officers spreading toward the roof.**

**Shouts were heard above and when Carolyn finally burst through the roof exit, she found officers milling around a fallen body with blonde hair.**

**Her heart in her throat, Carolyn pushed through the throng and found it wasn't Alex, but Nicole Wallace. **

"**She's alive," a voice from behind her said.**

**Snapping around, she saw Alex with a grim look on her face. Carolyn nodded with relief. It wasn't her place to say too much or make judgments yet. Her eyes scoured Alex for wounds or bruises.**

"**I'm okay," Alex said. "She came at me with a knife. I immobilized her. A shot to the shoulder and leg."**

**Carolyn ****nodded again, understanding Alex' deadpan description of the events. The professional had kicked in. This was just another dangerous perp apprehended. **

"**I don't think this is the end of it****," Carolyn said. "Bree Archer is here and behaving suspiciously. And Bobby…" She faltered as Alex' brows went up. "He's been injured. The doctors are with him on the ground floor—"**

"_**Shit! **_**Nicole said, but I didn't believe— I thought she was just saying that to—"****Alex wheeled around and disappeared through the roof exit.**

**Carolyn turned back to the unconscious body of Nicole, bleeding from two wounds.**

_**Probably fainted**_**, she thought, feeling no pity for the inert woman. Try a taste of your own medicine, Nicole. **

**She respected Alex for not mortally wounding Nicole. After what the woman did to Mike, Carolyn wondered if she would ****be so generous. And Nicole had probably been responsible for Bobby's injuries.**

"**I'll go get a doctor. Poor guys. They're being overworked tonight." Carolyn sighed heavily. "When the medics are finished with her, I want two guards on her around the clock," she ordered the officers still bent over Nicole, then left the roof. **

**She still had to find Archer.**

**oOo**

**By the time Alex hit the ground floor, Bobby was on a gurney in the E.R. Alex was directed there by the receptionist, her heart in her throat, and palms clammy. She knew he was okay. Anything else and she would have felt it.**

**Using her badge to get past the E.R.'s watchdogs, Alex got close enough to the gurney to see Bobby lying there, pale, his mouth twisted in pain even while unconscious, ****with the doctors working on him with animated urgency.**

_**I got her for you, Bobby. You'll never have to **__**worry about her again.**_

**Alex started to tremble, ****huge shudders she couldn't control. A wave of dizziness doubled her over, and she thrust a hand out for something to keep her on her feet.**

_**I got her for you. Now, you stay alive for me.**_

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	15. Chapter 15

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

**oOo**

**Chapter ****Fifteen**

_**A week later**__**…**_

**Carrying two coffees into her bedroom, Carolyn started up her barrage. **

**She tried talking him out of it last night. Unsuccessfully. They finished sleeping at each edge of the bed, backs toward each other. A stalemate that had torn at Carolyn's nerves and sickened her stomach, but with a fitful sleep behind her and a stronger than usual coffee, she was ready to start at him again.**

"**I still can't believe you and Bobby are gonna do this!"**

**Slapping one ****mug onto the deeply oiled surface of her Carrollton mahogany chest and not caring that coffee haphazardly spilled, she gulped a mouthful from her own cup and, desperate to change his mind, glared at Mike fixing his tie in the dresser's ornate mirror. **

"_**Shit!**_**" Mike angrily pulled at the knot at his neck and flipped his tie open to start again. "Who better?" he demanded.**

"**Who?" Carolyn gaped at him, not quite believing he couldn't see the rashness of his decision. "Alex! **_**Me! **_**A hundred other detectives rather than two men still recovering from horrific injuries!"**

**Mike shrugged. "A little heart attack—"**

**Carolyn shrieked through her teeth, not caring she was losing control. "A **_**huge**_** heroin overdose!"**

"**Hey, if Wallace is recovered enough from two gunshot wounds—"**

"**She's not recovered enough and that's what you two want. You want her weak, not realizing you're in no fit state yourselves!" **

**Tweaking his tie taut, Mike went for his coffee and grimaced at the coffee spill. "You're gonna regret leaving that stain—"**

"_**Fuck the stain!" **_**Carolyn took deep gulps of air and closed her eyes. Losing her cool wasn't helping.**

**Mike retreated to the bed and his opened gym bag****, rummaging through it. "Fuck! No clean socks!"**

"**I **_**told**_** you to move everything in. I've got plenty of wardrobe and drawer space—"**

"**I've gotta have my independence! I'm grateful you've…" His hand waved in the air, teeth gritting over the word. "…**_**nursed**_** me these past few days, but I haven't agreed to anything else."**

**Ignoring ****his unwitting cruelty, Carolyn triumphantly seized on his slip. "Well, that's where I've got you, isn't it?" **

**He looked up from ****the bag. "Whaddya mean?"**

"**Frankie Silvera told me you'd mentioned you were moving in with a Carolyn. Now, unless you're ****sneaking around with another Carolyn—"**

"**I told Frankie I **_**might**_** move in with you. It wasn't a definite." He swung around, his arms wide. "What do I do for socks?"**

**Carolyn's eyes opened wide, her mouth dropping. **

_**Of all the**__** trivial…**_

**At the point where she'd either kill him or****, at the very least, maim him, she went to him and put her arms around his waist, pressing her face to his shirt. His chest was heaving with suppressed anger and Carolyn ached that she was part of the cause. Tears welled in her eyes.**

"**I nearly lost you, Mike****," she said fiercely. "I'm not letting you spend more time away from me than I can help it. Fuck your socks, fuck your independence. I'm not letting you go."**

**She felt his hands jerk and hover to stroke her hair, then his fingers were under her chin, lifting it to meet his descending mouth. His lips swooped on hers, pressing hard, punishing. Carolyn bore it, thriving on his strength after seeing him so weak in hospital. Finally gentling, his kiss became sweet and apologetic.**

"**So you've been talking to my old partner behind my back," he said, lifting his head. **

**He pressed his mouth to hers again, taking the kiss deeper. Carolyn melted into him, her arms stealing around his neck, desperate little noises vibrating in her throat as she clung to him.**

**He broke the kiss with a sigh. "What else did she say?" **

**Carolyn ****rubbed her cheek against his chest, frustration nipping away her anger. "That if I was fool enough to play masochist, then you'd be an idiot if you didn't agree. That you'd never even come close to considering a permanent relationship in the ten years she'd known you, and it was high time you did. She couldn't think of a man who needed it more—"**

"**Quite the chatterbox, wasn't she?"**

"**She made herself available to us while we were looking for Bree Archer. Naturally, we talked about you." ****Carolyn lifted her head, ready to appeal to him again. "Mike, don't go today—"**

"**I gotta, Carolyn.****" Mike cupped her face in his hands, his eyes hardening. "I'm not letting Goren face her alone, and I've got a personal stake in breaking her too. Deakins says she's continuing to deny bombing that ferry or any involvement with Archer—"**

"**I'm sorry I let Archer go.****" Carolyn tossed her head, her stomach churning. "I broke protocol."**

"**You saved Goren's life. No one is going to hold that against you. If Archer's involved, we'll get Nicole to lead us to her."**

"**If she doesn't kill you both first."**** Carolyn pulled away and sat down on the edge of the bed.**

"**That's not funny."**

"**Don't I know it!" Her shoulders slumped as she twitched at the cover at the foot of the bed. "There's some in the bottom drawer, by the way."**

"**Some…?"**

"**Socks."**

"**You've got my socks in your bottom drawer?"**

"**Not **_**your**_** socks." Carolyn's breath came out in an annoyed rush. "Socks. I bought you some. Navy blue with little purple hearts on them." Petulance crept into her voice. "I…I couldn't resist." **

**Mike**** pulled open the drawer and held up the socks, examining them. "Cute." Turning back to her, he paused, a shadow passing over his face. "I'll consider it, okay?"**

**Carolyn's ****chin rose with her heart. "Not going today?" she asked.**

"**No, moving in." He joined her on the edge of the bed. "Here. But I'm not giving up my apartment if I do."**

**Joy swelled her chest, ****relief making her light-headed. "No! I don't expect you to. You could sublet it." **

**Mike pulled apart his new socks and ****drew up his foot. "Nurse Bates told me much the same as Frankie did, I guess."**

"**What about?" Carolyn said.**

**He concentrated on pulling on his socks, avoiding looking at her. "Hanging on to you. Something good that comes into your life, she said, you don't push it away."**

"**We've got a few people who think it's not a bad idea, Mike."**** Carolyn spoke quietly, not wanting to push him further than she had to.**

"**Deakins doesn't agree. He's probably got you transferred by now."**

"**Actually, I'm working on that myself." **

"**You got it all worked out, right?" He drew back to look at her.**

"**Right."**

**Pushing to his feet, Mike reached under the dresser for his shoes. ****"I wonder if Goren is getting as much grief from Eames."**

**oOo**

**Looking out of the SUV's window, Goren followed the familiar land****scape of the drive out to Rikers. He shifted in his seat, partly from the discomfort of the wound in his side and partly from the crackle of tension in the cabin of the vehicle. He opted to not don his usual suit, wearing a loose polo neck shirt over his trousers instead. There was less pull on the wound, but he worried that without the professionalism of his suit, we would come over less effective in the interrogation.**

**As it was, h****e had less than twenty minutes to clear the cloud between him and Alex so that he could focus on the interrogation ahead. He'd put it off since being released from the hospital less than two days ago, but he needed to know where he stood with Alex. **

**Before he went into Nicole's head.**

"**You left early again last night," he said, not looking at ****Alex, but conscious of her hands on the steering wheel, her hip close to his, her leg working the gas pedal and brake.**

**Her**** quick glance toward him vouched that she'd heard his quiet statement, but she took her time answering. **

"**Your wound…****" she finally ventured. "It's not healed enough to—"**

"**You could have slept by my side," he countered quickly, turning his head. "I could have fallen asleep in your arms."**

**Her lips parted and he saw her eyes briefly close. ****"I…didn't know. That it would mean so much to you."**

"**I didn't know…that it would mean so…little to **_**you**_**."**

**She bit**** her lip, but her eyes were glued to the road ahead.**

"**You've withdrawn from me****," he said, trying again. "I need…to know… why."**

"**Your injuries—"**

**Goren**** thumped the dashboard of the SUV, not caring that Alex jumped and the vehicle surged forward.**

"**This has nothing to do with my injuries! Tell me the truth, Alex!"**

**Her mouth worked over her distress****. "I keep seeing you…on that gurney." She flicked a quick glance at him. "You almost died. It was like when—"**

"**You're talking about your late husband****," he nodded. "When Joe died. Alex, you can't—"**

"**Leave it, Bobby, will ya?! **_**Just leave it**_**."**

**He wanted to say so much more. That she couldn't live in the past. That not everyone she loved would be taken from her. Or that, at least, she couldn't deny herself closeness to someone because she feared losing them.**

"**It's not about Joe, okay?"**** she gulped.**

**He either heard or imagined the tears behind her voice and wouldn't push it further. ****She was hurting and he didn't understand why.**

**oOo**

**The interrogation room at Riker's was set up with bare bones furniture, with one exception. The side of the table where the perp sat was devoid of any chair, making way for the wheelchair on which Nicole would be brought in from the infirmary.**

**Bobby ****took the chair on the left and pulled out the one on the right for Logan. He looked for and located the video/audio unit suspended from the ceiling. The interrogation would be fed into an anteroom where Eames and Barek would witness the event.**

**Nicole had asked for Bobby, refusing to talk to anyone else****. She even denied herself a lawyer, which was a first for her. Given Bobby's weakened condition, he had asked Logan to accompany him. If Nicole balked at that, then she could rot in jail for all he cared. He was finished with dancing to her tune.**

**Bobby ****pushed his leather binder to the side of the table and adjusted the mike in his ear. "You getting this, Alex?"**

"**You're on air, Bobby." Her voice was loud and clear in his head. He nodded, signaling to Alex the feed was good at his end.**

"**If Barek has any questions, you pass them on to me."**

"**Got it, Bobby. We're good to go here."**

**Logan pulled a notebook out of his suit pocket and placed it and a pen at his elbow. "You goin' hard or soft on her?" he asked.**

"**Whadda you think?"**

**Logan glanced ****toward Bobby's wounded side. "If it were me—"**

"**Exactly."**

**Bobby looked up as the door in front of him opened and Nicole was wheeled in by a priso****n guard. She was dressed in gray prison garb, soft slippers on her feet and a newly-bandaged cast on her right arm, courtesy of Alex' shot to her shoulder. No doubt her leg was bandaged too, but the drab dress she wore covered it. Her hair was pulled back in an unattractive ponytail, but her face was animated and still bore the confidence Bobby had come to mistrust. Even in jail, Nicole Wallace was down, but not out.**

"**Morning, Bobby!****" her grating voice lilted brightly. "You've brought a friend. How nice. Detective Logan, I believe. But he must go, really. This is between you and me, Bobby."**

**All the hate and loathing he felt for this woman bubbled to the surface with her airy audacity. Jabbing his left finger at her, he leaned across the table as the guard parked her wheelchair.**

"**You gutted me, Nicole. And you filled **_**him**_** with heroin. **_**You**_** don't say who stays or who goes. You hear me?!"**

"**My, Bobby, your stay in hospital hasn't improved your disposition any. He can stay, if you insist." She looked Logan up and down. "Though what Alicia saw in him, I'll never know. To think I offered her Rafiq and she turned him down for this." Nicole smiled sweetly at Logan. "Quite the princess and the pauper story, wasn't it? The junior grade detective and a judge's daughter. Rather outclassed, wouldn't you agree, Detective?"**

"**Stop it, Nicole!" Bobby gritted. "Your little taunts aren't going to find any marks this time."**

**She arched a look at him. "Whatever you say. You've put on weight, haven't you? Is Alex too good a cook? She's fattening you up****. Though, it must hard on her when you hump her carrying all that weight—"**

**Bobby lost it. He surged out of his chair and leaned across the table, both hands reaching for her neck. He was arrested by Logan grabbing his right arm and pulling on it.**

"**Ease back," Logan warned. **

"**That's one to me already, Bobby," Nicole laughed. "It didn't take long at all. I am so going to enjoy this." **

**She sat back in her wheelchair****, crossed her arms and eyed them both with glee.**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_


	16. Chapter 16

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

_**Previously on "Cowboys…"**_

"_**Stop it, Nicole!" Bobby gritted. "Your little taunts aren't going to find any marks this time."**_

_**She arched a look at him. "Whatever you say. You've put on weight, haven't you? Is Alex too good a cook? She's fattening you up. Though, it must hard on her when you hump her carrying all that weight—"**_

_**Bobby lost it. He surged out of his chair and leaned across the table, both hands reaching for her neck. He was arrested by Logan grabbing his right arm and pulling on it.**_

"_**Ease back," Logan warned. **_

"_**That's one to me already, Bobby," Nicole laughed. "It didn't take long at all. I am so going to enjoy this." **_

_**She sat back in her wheelchair, crossed her arms and eyed them both with glee.**_

**oOo**

**Chapter Sixteen**

**The room seemed to be waiting for him, but Bobby ****reeled from the way he had so easily lost control. He searched for a redeeming gambit, but none came. He was too intent on finding his usual core of power over a perp, his 'tank of superiority', as Alex had one day called it.**

**He felt, but ignored, a nudge on his elbow from Logan.**

"**You've refused a lawyer," Logan finally breached the silence. "I need to remind you—"**

"**I don't want a lawyer," Nicole said rudely. "You send in the D.A. and I'll plead to the charges of attacking two of New York's finest…" Her eyes swept both of them, amused scorn lifting her mouth. "I can't deny those charges. Besides, it'll jump me up to Queen Bee status in the lock-up, but there is **_**no**_** proof that I blew up a damned ferry." She winced as she repositioned herself in her wheelchair. "As if I would? I was on the bloody thing too! Do you think I've discovered a deep-seated death wish?" **

"**P****sychotics don't need an excuse for anything," Logan sneered.**

**Nicole**** leaned an elbow on the armrest of her 'chair, cupping her chin with a hand. "Are you running point, Detective Logan? I would have thought Bobby would want the pleasure." She tilted her head toward Goren. "I'm not sure Detective Logan has it in him to take me on, though, Bobby, and he doesn't quite have your…appeal."**

"**Cut the crap, Nicole," Bobby snarled. "You were on that ferry. You would have known I was on it. What your agenda was… If you wanted me out of the way, you could have chosen…a simpler method."**

"**Precisely, Bobby, which is my point. I…didn't…blow…it up."**

**Conscious ****of his hands twitching on the table top, Goren slid his leather binder across in front of him, opened it and laid his palms flat upon it, the cool paper easing some of the tension. "What were you doing on the ferry?"**

**Sighing heavily, ****Nicole leaned back in her 'chair. "I have to admit I was following you. I was on Staten Island. I saw you and your new sidekick here…where's the delectable Alex by the way?" She made a show of looking about her, snapping a smile at her guard, her gaze sweeping over Goren and Logan. "After shooting me, the least she could do is visit and ask after my health."**

**Goren ignored her question. ****"You saw Logan and me on Staten Island…" he prompted.**

"**Yes, in the Uni coffee shop of all places. I know I should have let sleeping dogs lie, but you looked cutely flustered and disheveled like an absent-minded professor and Logan looked like…well, the mutt dog he is—"**

"**You ****think you know me?!" Logan spat, his chair grating on the concrete floor. **

"**Why wouldn't I?****" Nicole smiled nastily. "Your checkered career makes the New York police force look like a joke, keeping you in its ranks all this time. As for what you did to a young innocent like Alicia—"**

"**This isn't about Logan, Nicole," Goren said, his voice still too strident for his liking. Clamping down on his ire, he swallowed hard. "Why…why were you tailing me?"**

"**I couldn't resist!****" Nicole said, as if it were the most obvious and plausible explanation. She pursed her lips, the effect over her overbite, falsely innocent. "I missed you, Bobby."**

"**You followed me onto the ferry because…you…**_**missed **_**me?"**

"**You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" she trilled. "No, I was piqued by the fact that Alex wasn't glued to your side as usual. We haven't had a lover's tiff, have we? After all my hard work—"**

**Goren snapped his binder shut with a force that rattled the table.**** "What…were…you…doing on the ferry!?"**

**Nicole sighed again, even**** more theatrically. "I had time on my hands. Looking for a bit of fun. I wanted to see if you'd notice— There were lots of reasons, none really that important, but I had no intentions of being on a vessel about to explode!"**

"**If you didn't know what was about to happen," Logan said, "how was it that you managed to survive the blast when hundreds didn't?"**

"**You survived, Detective. Bobby survived. When the ferry went down, I was thrown clear. Looks like I've got more than nine lives, doesn't it?" She looked down at her hands, a smile lurking. "Is that the only reason you're here? To get me on the ferry explosion rap?" She raised her eyes to scan them incredulously. "If that's the case, the real perpetrators are getting away scot-free!"**

**Goren glanced at Logan, gauging how much of this he was swallowing. By ****the other man's closed look and tightened jaw, Goren got the feeling that Logan was re-evaluating his opinion of Nicole, something Bobby could relate to.**

"**Look, Bobby…reality check here," Nicole was saying. "It wasn't until I was backed into a corner in the hospital that I had any ideas of ridding myself of my NYPD 'thorn in the side'." One hand waved in the air, appealing to them. "I heard about the island being sealed off and knew I had to blend in if I wanted to escape the net you'd set up. I made my way to the hospital, but so did you and put the whole damn place in lock-down and things… well… just ballooned from there. I saw the opportunity to dispose of the three of you. The man who tarnished Alicia's loyalty to me and the two who have dogged me for the last five years."**

**Goren swiped his face with a hand. "Bree Archer—"**

"**She doesn't exist. **_**I'm Bree Archer. **_**Surely I don't have to spell out the simplistic to you both. Well, with Detective Logan I might."**

"**I don't know what you got against me, Wallace," Logan gritted, "but your mouth's not earning you any favors here—"**

**The saccharine sweetness slid from Nicole's face like icing on a cake at a July wedding. "Alicia died because of you, **_**Logan…**_**" she spat, her look venomous. "You dragged her up to the estate with you and got her killed—"**

"_**You**_** killed her!" **

**Logan erupted from his seat and it was Goren's turn to restrain him with a hand on his sleeve.**** Bobby warned Mike she would poke at his underbelly.**

**When ****Logan had settled back into his seat, Goren pulled a small plastic bag out of his pocket and slid it across the table. "A fake I.D.…. for Bree Archer… with your photo on it. Where'd you get it?"**

**Her chest heaving, Nicole's eyes slid back to him, the battle-light dulling. ****"Bobby, you know better," she said, her tongue pushing at her teeth. "No one ever deals with the source. By the time the goods reach the receiver, the supplier's hands are well and truly washed clean. And…" She leaned forward in her chair. "… you're not here to reel in a fake I.D. ring, so let's move on… or move out, shall we?"**

"**You and Bree Archer…" Logan persisted. **

"**I told you, you clod. There is no Bree Archer."**

**Goren glanced at Logan again****. The man's jaw worked over the insult, but he merely turned to Goren, brows raised. **

**They were both thinking the same thing.**

_**Who**__** was the red-head?**_

"**What is it?" Nicole's voice was sharp, illuminated by their being thrown on the back foot.**

"_**Bobby**_**…" Alex' sharp insertion through his earpiece alerted Goren to the change in the tenor of the interrogation. "She doesn't know…"**

**Bobby stood, pushing back his chair**** and picked up his binder. "We'll get you that D.A." He turned and headed for the door.**

"_**Daddy, don't go…**_**"**

"**What the—?" Logan blurted, and Goren turned back to see the other man half out of his chair, staring at Nicole.**

**Nicole was slumped in her seat, her**** bottom lip quivering, tears welling in eyes that pleaded with Goren. **

**Bobby watched in disbelief as Nicole's face crumpled, her 'little girl' persona sliding into place.**

"_**Damn you, Nicole!**_**" he shouted. "You will **_**not**_** beat this with insanity! You hear me!" He thumped the table with a fist.**

"**Bobby!" Alex' voice**** in his ear punched through his anger. "Use it! Turn it back on her!"**

**Goren closed his eyes and squared his shoulders****, dredging up some measure of calm. Dropping his binder to the table, he rounded the table's corner and leaned over Nicole's wheelchair, thrusting his face at her, his eyes level with, and mere inches from hers. **

"**Tell Daddy," he crooned****, swallowing down his revulsion. "Tell Daddy what you did, Nicole." His head twisted and dipped, then came back to fix her with what he hoped was a softer look of understanding. "You had fun, didn't you, Nicole?" he asked, keeping his tone light and sympathetic, but it cost him in self-respect. "You chased Daddy and his friend…blew up the big boat they were on—"**

"**No! Daddy, I didn't! The boat was scary…"**

"_**What the fuck?!**_**"**

**Nicole jerked**** at Logan's profanity, shrinking into her 'chair but Goren ignored Mike's confusion. The other man had never been privy to this side of Nicole, but as Alex reminded him, it heralded Nicole in her most honest and unguarded moments. **

"**Daddy, your friend'****s nasty."**

"**He's sorry, Nicole. He won't hurt you."**

"**Where's Mummy?" Nicole gasped, her eyes wide and horrified. "What happened to Mummy? I didn't…?"**

"**Mommy's fine. She's here. In another room. She came to see you too."**

**Nicole blinked rapidly, her shoulders dropping. "Mummy mustn't know, must she?" The terror returned to her eyes. "She doesn't **_**know?!"**_

"**Goren…" ****Logan started toward them, but Bobby held up a hand, keeping him at bay.**

"**Mommy doesn't know," ****Goren assured her. **

"**Daddy loves me, doesn't he?" Nicole asked****, her voice more childish and plaintive in her desperation for assurance. "Tell me, Daddy!" She grabbed his arm and butted her head against him.**

"**Nicole has to tell me first****," he said firmly, his skin crawling. "That's how it works, doesn't it? Tell me about the boat."**

**Tears welled in Nicole's eyes again. "I didn't like the boat! It sunk! Boats aren't supposed to sink! I was frightened!"**

"**She didn't do it, Bobby," Alex said in his ear.**

**Straightening, Bobby looked at Logan and shook his head. He went to move off, but Nicole clung to his arm.**

"**Don't go, Daddy! I'm frightened here! Don't leave me. I didn't mean to hurt you."**

**Logan stepped between them. "Yep, you're one sick psycho, Wallace."**

**Horribly mesmerized****, Goren watched Nicole's eyelids tremble, her eyes flicker, cloud and then clear again. Her face hardened, set and aged in the space of a breath.**

**She looked up at Logan, towering above her. ****"Detective," she said, "come down to my level and say that again."**

**Goren tipped his hat to Logan as the other man swung away instead. "Your level is outta reach to the worst crack-heads. No way I could even come close."**

"_**Bastard!" **_**Nicole swung round wildly, almost tipping herself from her 'chair. "**_**Bobby! **_**Get that bastard out of my sight!" She tried to get to Logan herself, the wheelchair rocking and thumping against the interrogation table. "Get…him…out!"**

"**C'mon, Logan," ****Goren said wearily, leading the way out. "We're done here. She's Carver's now."**

**Joining the women, Goren watched Barek check Logan over with her eyes, fussing over him mentally, if not physically. Bobby looked to Alex, but she stood back, aloof and unconcerned over his own health. Resentment clawed at him, spurred by confusion and a helplessness to bridge the gap yawing between them.**

"**How are you, Bobby?" Barek asked him, and he waved her ****obvious concern away.**

"**I'm fine. It was…all…unproductive…I don't know that we got anything."**

"**She's going away for her attack on you and Mike. That's the tip of the iceberg. The house of cards may tumble once Carver gets through with her."**

**Goren nodded, not sharing her optimism, but feeling it was out of his hands now. **

"**I'm more interested in ****how our Australian visitor from last week comes into this," Barek said. "She knows Nicole. She was at the hospital. It was her that alerted me to the room where you lay injured. I assumed she was up to mischief, but what if she was just trying to help me find you?" She frowned, her voice progressing into a mumble. "She had connections that allowed her access to the island… to the hospital… She said her husband knew me…"**

**Goren listened to her theory with interest, then shrugged. ****"Unfortunately, Nicole's no help to us there, whether by choice or ignorance."**

**Barek hesitated, then went back to Logan.**

"**Let's go, hon," Goren heard her say quietly, and Bobby's heart grabbed at the slipped endearment. Logan and Barek were well on their way to becoming a couple. **

**He**** had to wonder where he and Alex were headed.**

**oOo**

_**tbc…**_

_**Last chance to have any loose ends answered… Conclusion in next chapter.**_


	17. Chapter 17

**"Cowboys, Pair of Kings"**

**Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara**

_**T**_

_**Usual disclaimers apply. **_

**oOo**

**Chapter Seventeen**

_**Several**__** weeks later…**_

**Following ****Ron Carver across the squad floor, Logan saw their Captain come out of his office, his coat over his arm, and shut the door. **

**Intercepting them, Deakins looked at the ADA. "There was a bottle of single malt in my bottom drawer…never been opened. I sent it to your office." Switching his coat to his left arm, he held out his right.**

**Nodding, ****Carver shook his hand. "I'll save it with the memories, my friend."**

"**You two behave," Deakins said, giving Logan a small smile and headed for the squad's exit for the last time. **

**Logan cringed, reminded how Deakins' had caught them necking in Carolyn's car. Since confirmation of Carolyn's transfer, their Captain had eased up on them, but still took perverse pleasure in throwing that night in Logan's face.**

"**Hey, Captain…" Logan arrested his stride, turning him back. **

**Deakins waited.**

"**Thanks," Logan finished, saying it all in the single word. Thanks for taking a gamble on him when others didn't want to be tainted. Thanks for being a good Captain, champion and friend.**

**Deakins swept out an arm toward an empty nest of desks. "Logan, I'm assigning you that desk. Grab it before the new guy puts somebody else there."**

**Logan chuckled, his eyes sliding to, and softening on Carolyn.**

**Not bothering to hide the warmth in her gaze, she smiled back, then watched Deakins leave Major Case.**

**Carver ****nodded to them as he walked past. "Good luck with your new Captain."**

**Logan followed his progress out, then looked down at Carolyn. "So… I've**** finally got myself a decent desk."**

"**A new desk, a new partner…" **

"**A new home." Logan ****grimaced. "The Captain hasn't informed the others about your transfer. Left it for us."**

"**I wonder what will floor them the most." Carolyn said, her smile widening. "That I'm working for the big brass or that you're moving in with me."**

**Logan grunted. "How 'bout you just tell them about your transfer to the Chief of Ds and I'll ease them into the other. They're gonna think you're crazy enough wanting to work for Bradshaw, but to take me on twenty-four seven…?"**

"**Crazy, yes. Contented, definitely. Satisfied…" She tipped her chin at him, a secretive smile on her lips. "…permanently."**

**Logan growled deep in his throat, then pulled himself back. "Let's go break the news."**

**oOo**

**Boredly looking around Rikers' interrogation room, Nicole Wallace wondered who her mystery visitor**** was, then decided she didn't care. Annoyed with the interruption, she wanted to get back to her cell and continue penning her memoir, the rights to which she'd already sold to Harper Collins. **

**Bobby didn't know it yet, but "He Painted Me Wrong" was going to be dedicated to him. Nicole intended to tell all, but admit to nothing, ****throwing the allegations back in Bobby's face as nothing but lies from a frustrated, emotionally-tormented New York City detective.**

**When the door opened, ****she looked up to see a tall, slim red-haired woman and an equally tall, fit man with light brown hair, enter the room together. Both wore dark trousers, long dark coats and pristine white shirts. The woman's demeanor was no-nonsense and business-like, the man's more unobtrusive but quietly calculative. 'Feds' was written all over them.**

**Nicole's mouth turned down. "I've already told everyone who's asked, I had nothing to do with that bloody ferry going down. Why won't someone take the hint?"**

"**Homeland Security already has," the red-head said. "You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."**

"**It's been nice not knowing you then," Nicole said, not disguising her derisive triumph. "Guard!" She turned away, but her escort had disappeared. "Where—?"**

"**Is she worth all the subterfuge?****" the red-head asked, tossing a look at the man who now had an anticipatory smile on his lips.**

"**I think the data should prove interesting****," he nodded, his voice a monotone mumble. "You can work on your accent while I've got her."**

"**What are you talking about?" Nicole watched the pair in confusion, unable to grasp the import of their conversation. "Who are you?"**

"**There's nothing wrong—" the red-head declared.**

**The man**** shook his head with tolerant humor. "The fake I.D. I organized for her kept her in the vicinity, but we were lucky your 'Australian' impersonation fooled the police enough to get them involved."**

"**And nearly got them killed. If I hadn't led one of them to Goren—"**

"**A miscalculation, I admit," he nodded.**** "I knew Goren was bait she couldn't resist, but as for terminating him… She's more cold-hearted than even I suspected."**

**The woman who once called herself Bree Archer gave him a disbelieving look. "A momentous admission, no doubt. As for my accent, I won't get the chance to practice if you repeat the experiment you did on the last one."**

**He chuckled softly. "Ah, yes, my little bad habits. Barek tried to break me of them, but—"**

"**Habits? Fetishes, you mean. But you married **_**me,**_** not her."**

**Nicole's bravado slipped at the realization their agenda was very different from her usual interviews, a series of unproductive brow beatings that amused her and frustrated her interrogators. "What **_**are**_** you talking about?" she asked, her voice rising in alarm.**

"**You're coming with us, Ms****. Wallace," the red-head said. "And you won't be needing that wheelchair."**

**Nicole's eyes widened as a bolt of fear gripped her spine. "I don't …**_**Guard!**_**" She flung a frightened look over her shoulder, but no prison personnel materialized**

**The man approached Nicole, his coat billowing behind him, eyes silvered and glittering. Putting a hand to her throat, Nicole opened her mouth to scream****… **

**oOo**

**Opening the door to Alex' knock, Goren's spirit soared that she had finally sought him out after work. Now, at last, they could air the crisis between them, the reason for Alex turning from him after their relationship had gone from colleagues and friends to accidental lovers.**

**Goren's confusion with her shunning the new personal side of their association had made him bad-tempered and preoccupied at work. It was time to iron out a solution and move on and Bobby knew where he wanted things moved. He ached to hold her again, to feel her skin against him, have his soul succored by hers.**

"**Alex…" He cleared his throat of the desperate eagerness beneath the surface. **

**She swept into his apartment****. "**_**Nicole's gone, Bobby!**_**"**

"**What?!"**

"**Carver called me. Rikers doesn't have her any more. They transferred her out and won't say where or who's got her!"**

**Stopping Alex' rapid pacing of his living room, Goren's hands smoothed themselves over her shoulders, longing to pull her into him. She looked up at him, tossing her hair from her face. **

"**It was all for nothing," she cried. "We're never gonna bring her to justice."**

"**Alex…it will be okay," he reasoned, not quite believing it himself. "I'll look after you—"**

**Alex jerked ****back her head. "Look after me? I don't want you looking after me."**

_**Shit! **_**Goren flayed himself for saying the wrong thing. **

"**This isn't about me," she said through clenched teeth. "I'm not the one at risk here—"**

**She**** tried to push past him but he put himself between her and the door. It felt good to feel her against him once more, even if it was a desperate move. Alex froze, head hanging, hair covering her face.**

"**I can't do this," she whispered, then took a slow deliberate step back from him. "I'm not gonna do this again." **

**Sidestepping him, Alex walked out the door.**

**Unable to move, or**** speak, Goren watched her go.**

**oOo**

**Stuffing the few personal possessions into a plastic bag, Martin Lalor's hand paused on the exercise book. **

**When ordered to clean out the cell of Nicole Wallace and destroy the items, Lalor had wondered why. The belongings of deceased inmates were still itemized and sent onto surviving relatives. If there was no known next-of-kin, they were usually stored, not destroyed, and certainly not this soon.**

**Opening**** the soft cover of the book, he scanned the first few pages, his brows rising with curiosity. Sitting down on the prison cot, his mouth pursed over a line and even let out a whistle on the next page. Flipping through the rest, Lalor's interest peaked as the name of a NYPD detective known to him started to reoccur. **

**Lalor rolled up the exercise book and stashed it in his coat pocket.**

**oOo**

_**Finis. Finally.**_

_**Yes, no resolution here for Bobby and Alex as the next story in my universe to follow this one in timeline is "Redeemi**__**ng the Teacher" then "Splinter" and "Fold" all hinting at the continuing troubled nature of Bobby and Alex' personal relationship. **_

_**As far as I'm concerned, I'm now in parallel with LOCI Season Six, where everyone is where they should be and with whom they should be, with the little addition of Carolyn in Logan's life on a personal level, and no longer on a working level. **_

_**My next work in progress is aligning **__**LOCI Season Six Episode "Renewal" with Carolyn being in Logan's life. Coming up with a premise to explain my LOCI Mike Logan's actions in "Renewal" was easier than I expected. :-D**_


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